Picture of the Day

An Iraqi mourns over the coffin of his brother after taking him from a hospital morgue in Baghdad's impoverished district of Sadr City. (AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

At the Imam Ali hospital morgue in Sadr City,

Around 200 anguished relatives choked back tears and anger as they swarmed past him, frantically trying to distinguish loved ones from a grotesque pile of charred bodies, many burnt beyond recognition.

For many, a ring, tattered remains of clothes ripped to shreds in the blast or their teeth was all there was to pick out their fathers and sons.

Some were unsure, dithering over whether the putrid remains really were their flesh and blood. Some came back later to retrieve the doubtful corpse for burial, desperate to end an agonising trawl through city morgues.

"We will bury him even if he isn't our son," said one man. His brother Ali Mohammed was one of those killed in Sadriyah, when a giant car bomb incinerated shop fronts, human flesh, cars and mini-buses.

(AP) "Abdullah, whose shop was damaged by flying shrapnel, said he took part in 18 funerals Thursday morning. "I cried a lot," he said."

(As Republican Rep. Mike Pence said, "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.")