IRAQ: No Unemployment Among Gravediggers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: IPS News

IRAQ: No Unemployment Among Gravediggers
By Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Feb 5 (IPS) - Amidst the soaring unemployment in Iraq, the gravediggers have been busy. So busy that officials have no record of the number of graves dug; of the real death toll, that is.

"I've been working here four years," a gravedigger who gave his name as Ali told IPS at the largest cemetery in Baghdad, a sprawling expanse in the Abu Ghraib section of the capital city. "In 2006 and some of 2007, we buried 40- 50 people daily. This went on for one-and-a-half years.

"Twenty-five percent of these were from violence, and another 70 percent were killed by the Mehdi Army (the militia of Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr)." Only a few appeared to have died from natural causes.

"Most of the dead were never logged by anyone," Ali said, "because we didn't check death certificates, we just tried to get the bodies into the ground as quickly as possible."

Read more: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45680

[sutz12]

1. Another Republican growth industry.

:shrug:

[Mithreal]

2. It's the Dems war now. We are in charge. We can end it at any time.

I am not for a slow withdrawal.