BAGHDAD,
May 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Against a backdrop of almost daily
bombings, shuddering explosions and US raids that claim the lives of
innocent Iraqi civilians, the demand for coffins is so high and
undertakers are burying bodies at a huge profit.
“The
spiraling death rate in the country has definitely reflected
positively on undertakers,” Mohammad Sakran, who owns a tomb in east
Baghdad, told the London-based Al-Quds Press news agency.
“The
tomb is running out of space,” he added, recalling that many of the
Shiite casualties who were killed in deadly clashes between US
occupation forces and militias of Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr had
been buried in his tomb.
In
the past, it was just a funeral here and there. But now dozens of
Iraqis are laid to rest day in and day out with tombs bursting at the
seams, said the news agency.
Burial
grounds have not only mushroomed in recent months across the country,
but have become the size of such cities as An-Najaf as every family
has lost at least one to an indiscriminate car bomb, US bullets or
assassinations.
In
other cities, bodies remain uncollected in morgues.
Burial
Tag
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Iraqi
men remove a victim after a powerful car bomb explosion in
Baghdad. (Reuters).
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But
there is also bitterness in the scene as the misfortunes of others are
fortunes to Iraqi undertakers.
The
burials are priced differently according to the family lineage, an
undertaker, who requested anonymity, told Al-Quds Press.
“Well-off
families are paying generously without argument,” he said.
“We
don’t put a price tag, but leave it to the families, who might pay more
than expected.”
But
he said that the age and the cause of death set a minimum and maximum
price.
“If
s/he is old and died of a certain disease, the burial price ranges
between 25,000 to 40,000 dinars (between 18 and 35 dollars),” noted
the undertaker.
“The
price could rise if s/he is young and was assassinated or killed in a
car bomb.”
Deadly
car bombs and blasts have been plaguing Iraq ever since the US-led
forces occupied the country on April 9, 2003.
On
Saturday, May 7, a car bomb exploded at a busy intersection in central
Baghdad as a foreign security convoy drove past, killing at least nine
Iraqis and four foreigners, and injuring 35 people.
At
least 60 people were killed and 150 were wounded when a bomber blew
himself up at the local offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
which also served as a recruiting center for police in the northern
Iraqi city of Arbil, on Wednesday, May 4, 2005.
A
study published by respected British medical weekly Lancet in
October last year that over 100,000 civilians -- half of them women
and children -- have lost their lives since the start of US-led
invasion-turned-occupation.
