HATRA,
Iraq, July 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The remains of
about 300 people, believed to be Kurdish victims of the deposed regime
of Saddam Hussein, have been found in a mass grave in northern Iraq
Saturday, July 5.
According
to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent, bone, hair and bits of
clothing were clearly visible at the bottom of a gaping hole five meters
(16.5 feet) wide in a barren desert plain near the town of Hatra, about
300 kilometers (185 miles) northwest of the capital Baghdad.
"So
far they have taken out 50 bodies out of about 300," a local
farmer, Ali Rahim, told AFP at the site, referring to Kurds and American
troops who he said began excavating the pit Thursday, July 3.
New
digs and probes into the dried earth revealed at least nine more sets of
remains, including long tufts of light brown hair and scraps of
flower-printed scarves and veils, which are believed to be those of
Kurdish women and children executed by Saddam's regime in 1988.
Rahim
said his friend, Khalil Eid, a 55-year-old shepherd, was witness to the
mass burial back in 1988.
"My
friend witnessed Iraqi army cars loaded with bodies of women and
children, and the bodies were dumped here," Rahim said, adding that
Eid was not now in town.
He
added that the Kurds who arrived at the grave site beginning last month
were peshmerga fighters aligned with Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who
heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Kurdish
Television, which acts as a mouthpiece for the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), reported Friday, July 4, that the grave had been found by
Kurdish residents with the help of U.S. forces controlling the region.
The
region suffered under an anti-Kurd campaign by the regime in 1988 and
1989, which the Kurds refer to as Anfal and that included the infamous
chemical attack on the town of Halabja.
