Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

MASS GRAVES 

U.S. Agency for International Development 
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Persian 

Gulf 

- Thartha 

Lake 

Lake Urmia 

Owzan Qezel 

Euphrates 

Great Zab 

Tigris 

Tig ris 

Shattal Gharraf 

KARBALA' 

AL 

MAYSAN 

DIYALÁ 

BAGHDAD 

ARBIL 

NINAWÁ 

DAHUK 

BABIL 

AL QADISIYAH 

DIN 

AN 

AL ANBAR 

DHI QAR 

AS 

SULAYMANIYAH AT TA'IM 

SALAH AD 

AL BASRAH 

WASIT 

Baghdad 

Kuwait 

Kirkuk 

Al Hillah 

An Najaf 

Al 'Amarah 

Ahvaz 

Dezful 

Khorramabad 

Borujerd 

Hamadan 

Kermanshah 

(Urmia) 

Sanandaj 

Al Qamishli 

Orumiyeh 

(Mosul) 

Miandowab 

Al Mawsil 

Dahuk 

Ba'qubah 

Ar Ramadi 

Ad Diwaniyah 

An Nasiriyah 

Al Kut 

Samarra' 

'Aqrah 

Halabjah 

Arbil 

Al Basrah 

As Sulaymaniyah 

Zakhu 

Tall 

'Afar 

Al Hadr 

Makhmur 

Kuysanjaq 

Ilam 

Shaykh Sa'd 

Al Qa'im 

Abu Kamal 'Anah 

Al Hadithah 

Mehran 

Qasr-e Shirin 

Sinjar 

Ar Raqqah 

Dayr az Zawr 

Hit 

Mianeh 

Zanjan 

Hakkâri 

Rayat 

'Akashat 

Al Qayyarah 

Tawuq 

Al Hayy 

Qal'at Sukkar 

As Salman 

As Samawah 

Al Qurnah 

Makhfar al Busayyah 

Qaryat al Gharab 

Al Jahrah 

Jalibah 

Ar'ar 

Rafha 

Abu Sukhayr 

Ar Rutbah 

Bayji 

Qal'at Salih 

'Ali al Gharbi 

Dehloran 

Al Ahmadi 

Umm 

Qasr 

Khanaqin 

Al 

Fallujah 

Al Habbaniyah 

Radwaniyah 

Tikrit 

Dujaila 

Al Kufah 

Al Kharm 

Ar Rifa`i 

Salman Pak 

Al Ja`arah Al Ghammas Musay`idah 

Al Musayyib 

Al Halfayah 

Al `Aziziyah 

Ar Rumaythah 

An Nu`maniyah 

Al Mahmudiyah 

Al Majarr 

al Kabir 

Duwa 

Al Faw 

Safwan 

As Sulayb 

Az Zubayr 

Ash Shanin 

Ash Shatrah 

Suq ash Shuyukh 

Tawuq 

Hawija 

SYRIA 

IRAN 

TURKEY 

SAUDI ARABIA 

SAUDI ARABIA 

KUWAIT 

JORDAN 

( 

( 

( 

( 

IR A Q 

May 5, 2003: Mass grave visited 

near Al Hillah. 

Al Hillah, 300m off highway 

May 16, 2003: Two mass graves 

visited north of Al Hillah. 

May 13, 2003: Suspected 

mass grave in Radwaniyah. 

May 28, 2003: Suspected 

mass grave in Musayeb. 

May 9, 2003: Suspected 

mass grave in Kirkuk. 

May 17, 2003: Mass grave near 

Abu Hasib Fertilizer Factory. 

Located 20km SE of Al Basrah. 

May 13, 2003: Suspected 

mass grave near Mosul. 

May 24, 2003: Suspected 

mass grave near between 

Kirkuk and Hawija. 

Mass Grave Site 

Suspected Mass Grave Site 

The boundaries and names shown and the designations 

used on this map do not imply official endorsement or 

acceptance by the United Nations. 

Original Map Courtesy of the UN Cartographic Section 

0 

0 50 100 150 km 

50 100 mi 

Mass Graves was edited by USAID Senior Writer Ben Barber with assistance from Stephen Epstein of USAID’s Office of 

Transition Initiatives. 

Cover: Iraqis search for relatives and friends among victims found in a mass grave in Musayib, 75 kilometers southwest of 

Baghdad. The victims are thought to be from the 1991 uprising against the Iraqi government. The bodies, wrapped in linen 

shrouds, are being held in a makeshift morgue in a nearby youth center. 

All photos by USAID/ Thomas Hartwell except photo on inside back cover, which is by U.S. Department of State/ 

Sandra L. Hodgkinson. 

LO C ATIONS OF FIRST MASS GR AVES DISCOVERED IN IR AQ 

MUTHANNÁ 

NAJAF 

3km south of 
A Vast Human Tragedy


In a decade and a half of humanitarian work 


I have witnessed the aftermath of much human


tragedy, including the Rwandan genocide and


the killing fields of Cambodia. In June 2003, 


I visited Iraq’s mass graves, the most recent


addition to mankind’s legacy of mass murder.


Rows of white bundles containing bones filled


room after room. Families filed by, searching for


signs of those who had disappeared, some stolen


during the night, others taken in daylight. Even


small children were not spared the butchery.


The graves that Saddam Hussein’s henchmen


dug and filled with human beings are a bitter


sign that mankind still has a long way to go


before every person has the basic human rights


promised by all our religions and cultures—the


rights of life and liberty.


Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the


United Nations that under Saddam Hussein,


Iraq was “a murderous tyranny that lasted over


35 years.” “Today we are unearthing thousands


of victims in horrifying testament,” Zebari said.


I walked across the sandy plains of Iraq and


saw the mass graves that were just found and


are beginning to yield their tragic secrets. The


bones tell a story of horror and shame: arms


bound together, skulls pierced from behind.


Hundreds in one long trench.


Those who survived inside Iraq, and those who


watched helplessly from abroad, have joined


together to begin the long, painful process of


accounting for the dead. British Prime Minister


Tony Blair said on November 20, 2003, that as


many as 400,000 Iraqis lie in these mass graves.


They are Kurds, killed because of their ethnicity.


They are Shiites, killed because of their religion.


They are Sunnis, killed for their political views.


They are Egyptians, Kuwaitis, and Iranians,


killed because their lives meant nothing to


Saddam Hussein, his sons, and their followers.


As Saddam’s evil regime collapsed in April 


and May, 2003, and his Baath Party mass mur­


derers retreated into the shadows, Iraqis began


to act on their formerly hidden grief. They


searched for their loved ones rounded up over


the years in campaigns of terror. They had


heard rumors about shots in the night, mass


burials, and vanished prisoners. Now they 


followed those bloody trails to the mounds of


earth they suspected entombed their beloved


children and parents.


The new leaders in Al Hillah, Karbala, Najaf,


and a dozen other cities and towns around Iraq


worked with U.S. and British forces to try and


protect some of the mass graves. We hope to


preserve the evidence of these crimes against


humanity.


Human rights groups have formed, assisted 


by USAID and working with the Coalition


Provisional Authority, to urge people to 


record the names of those being exhumed and


describe the circumstances under which they


were seized and slain.


Yes—people want to find the remains of their


loved ones and give them a proper burial in


consecrated ground. But the Iraqi people also


want justice—to punish those who callously


killed their fellow citizens by the busload, day


after day, year after year.


Above all, if people in Iraq and around the


world hope to learn from the crimes of the past,


the mass graves of Iraq must be documented,


reported, and never forgotten or denied. 


This booklet is a small, early marker on that path.


Andrew Natsios, Administrator


U.S. Agency for International Development


January 2004


A Vast Human T 1 

ragedy 
A LEGACY OF TERR OR 

Since the Saddam Hussein regime was overthrown in May, 

270 mass graves have been reported. By mid-January, 

2004, the number of confirmed sites climbed to fifty-three. 

Some graves hold a few dozen bodies—their arms lashed 

together and the bullet holes in the backs of skulls testimony to their execution. Other graves go on for hundreds of 

meters, densely packed with thousands of bodies. 

“We’ve already discovered just so far the remains of 

400,000 people in mass graves,” said British Prime 

Minister Tony Blair on November 20 in London. The 

United Nations, the U.S. State Department, Amnesty 

International, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) all 

estimate that Saddam Hussein’s regime murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people. “Human Rights 

Watch estimates that as many as 290,000 Iraqis have 

been ‘disappeared’ by the Iraqi government over the 

past two decades,” said the group in a statement in May. 

“Many of these ‘disappeared’ are those whose remains 

are now being unearthed in mass graves all over Iraq.” 

If these numbers prove accurate, they represent a crime 

against humanity surpassed only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot’s Cambodian killing fields in the 

1970s, and the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. 

REPOR TS OF MASS KILLINGS 

Beginning in the 1980s, reports of mass murder began 

filtering out of Iraq. Saddam’s Baathist loyalists and 

police rounded up members of the Dawa party—they 

were never heard from again. Human rights groups said 

180,000 ethnic Kurds were rounded up and killed in the 

Anfal campaign in which hundreds of mountain villages 

were destroyed. Those left alive were moved into bleak 

collection cities that still dot the plains between Kirkuk 

and Sulaymaniyah. It was a crime so staggering that, 

without hard evidence of bodies to back it up, many 

refused to believe it possible. 

Then in 1988 came the use of nerve and mustard 

gas against Iraqi-Kurdish civilians in Halabjah. Five 

thousand were killed in a single day. The world was 

shocked, but still, the missing people rounded up over 

the previous months and years remained vanished. 

After the 1991 Gulf War, Shiites and Kurds revolted, 

but the rebellion was quickly crushed by Iraqi tanks 

and troops loyal to Saddam Hussein. While Kurds got 

protection from U.S. and British aircraft, creating an 

autonomous region in northeastern Iraq where they 

were safe from persecution, the Shiites were brutally 

repressed in the south, and tens of thousands vanished. 

A victim, still blindfolded, found in a mass grave in Musayib. 

Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

2 

Iraq’s Mass Graves 
The following pages include first-hand accounts from 

three Iraqis who survived the mass murders. Each tells 

what took place in a way that no formal report can 

match. Yet the world is duty-bound to learn the facts— 

cold, brutal, and numbing—of what happened over 

these years and how a modern government, equipped 

with the powers of a modern army and police, turned 

against its own people. 

A HISTORY OF DENIAL 

The reports of mass murder under Saddam Hussein 

had been made for years by the United Nations, the U.S. 

Government, HRW, independent journalists, and the families of people who were arrested and then vanished. But 

the Iraqi regime denied the reports, refused to allow U.N. 

investigations, and stonewalled human rights groups. 

“As in previous years, the regime continued to deny the 

widespread killings of Kurds in the north of the country 

during the ‘Anfal’ campaign of 1988,” said the U.S. 

State Department’s 2002 human rights report. “Both the 

[U.N.] Special Rapporteur and HRW concluded that the 

regime’s policies against the Kurds raised questions of 

crimes against humanity and violations of the 1948 

Genocide Convention.” 

Finally, the regime was swept away by U.S., British, and 

other allied forces in May, 2003, and the truth emerged. 

It came as no surprise that once the country was thrown 

open to the world press and international organizations, 

they might find evidence of these crimes against 

humanity. But few imagined the full extent of the 

slaughter that came to light. 

SEARCHING FOR THE GRAVES 

In early May, Saddam’s police, paramilitary troops, and 

army fled from their prisons, barracks, and killing fields. 

Thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children began a 

grim trek to the forbidden places they feared they would 

find their missing children, parents, and friends. 

Reports that mass graves had been discovered reached 

officials at the first U.S. administrative body in Iraq, the 

Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance 

(ORHA), which was later replaced by the Coalition 

Provisional Authority (CPA). A human rights expert from 

the U.S. Agency for International Development was one 

of the first outsiders to follow the Iraqis to the site of 

their grim discoveries. 

“South of Al Hillah in early May I heard about bones,” 

said Sloan Mann of USAID. “When I showed up, people 

were randomly digging through the site. I went there 

two days after the mass grave was discovered. 

“The site was very disturbed. Children walked barefoot 

in the grave. There were many families. Some were 

mourning. Some were curious onlookers.” 

Mann stood on the edge of a ditch some 20 meters long 

and 2 meters wide. About 25 sets of remains were 

showing, all in neat piles, along with the clothes the 

victims had worn when they died. Some were the 

clothes of children. 

THE UNITED STATES OFFERS TO HELP 

To help the Iraqis exhume their loved ones, the CPA 

authorized Mann and other U.S. officials to assist. Mann 

was part of the first deployment of Abuse Prevention 

Units (APUs), created by USAID to protect human rights 

in emergencies or conflict. The teams offered quick 

grants to buy everything from shovels to exhume graves 

to computers for logging in victims as they were 

unearthed. Money was provided for training Iraqis in 

forensic medicine—the science of determining the legal 

cause of death—so that evidence might be obtained for 

prosecution of those responsible for the killings. Help 

was also given to several Iraqi human rights groups, 

including the Free Prisoners Association and the 

Lawyers Association. They began compiling lists of 

missing Iraqis, suspected mass grave sites, confirmed 

victims, and documents relating to disappearances. 

In some cases, former Iraqi guards, burial workers, and 

even executioners themselves came forward to tell what 

had happened. Some said that if they had refused to 

arrest and kill as ordered, they would have been thrown 

into the pits themselves. 

The CPA and USAID officials working with the Iraqis 

quickly decided to divide the mass graves into three 

groups: 

■	 Emotionally overrun sites 

These are sites that have already been overrun by 

people seeking the remains of their missing relatives 

and friends. Since the sites are disturbed—and it 

would be unthinkable to intervene to stop people 

from completing their search—U.S. aid is aimed to 

train Iraqis to assist the community emotionally and 

to collect whatever information is possible: victim 

names, circumstances of disappearance, etc. 

■	 Humanitarian exhumation sites 

In these sites, trained Iraqi professionals teach the 

community how to put together all the bones and 

Ir aq’s Mass Gr a 3 

ves 
other remains from each victim, properly identify 

the remains, and help families obtain the best 

accounting of what happened to their loved ones. 

The primary purpose of these excavations is to 

identify missing persons, although some evidence 

will also be recovered by local forensic teams. 

■ Full criminal investigation sites 

Between eight and 20 sites are expected to be 

selected for full exhumation for accountability 

purposes in the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which was 

recently established by the Iraqi Governing Council 

to try cases of crimes against humanity, war crimes, 

and genocide. 

THE TASK AHEAD 

At the donor conference held in Madrid in October, 

funding, forensic teams, equipment, mortuary assistance, and training programs were requested from the 

international community to assist the Iraqi people in 

uncovering mass graves. These donations and assistance 

will be necessary for many years to come as the Iraqis 

move forward in their reconciliation process, according 

to the CPA senior human rights official Sandy 

Hodgkinson. The CPA Office of Human Rights and 

Transitional Justice has sent out staff to communities and 

talked about the need to have patience, preserve the 

sites, and respect the dead. So far, 270 suspected mass 

grave sites have been found by Iraqis, the CPA, and the 

U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. However, in 

some cases, mass grave reports have turned out to be 

either simply old cemeteries, or falsely reported to 

attract attention or to obtain funds. 

Another difficulty facing the effort to find and document 

mass graves is that those who carried out the murders, 

and other supporters of Saddam’s regime, have threatened the human rights groups collecting evidence of 

crimes against humanity. The Free Prisoners Association 

has been attacked, and two assassination attempts have 

taken place. 

Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

4 

Another challenge is the weather—the rainy winter 


prevented the opening of most mass graves until


February 2004. Nevertheless, the first of some 40 


international investigators began arriving in January


2004. They will prepare evidence for the Iraqi Special


Tribunal, an Iraqi institution that will prosecute some 


of the estimated 6,000 people linked to Saddam-era


crimes. The plan is to begin prosecutions with Ali


Hassan al-Majid (known as “Chemical Ali”), a cousin of


Saddam Hussein accused of ordering the gassing of the


Kurds in 1988.


CPA official Hodgkinson states that overall, the mass


grave program will differ slightly from the process used


in Bosnia, and will be specific to the needs in Iraq.


Scientific methods of excavation for investigative


purposes will be the same. Programs to identify the


missing, however, will differ from Bosnia, where to 


date, only 8,000 of the 30,000 bodies believed to be


buried as a result of the conflict have been recovered.


Mass graves are not evident to the untrained eye. 


Many are concealed under tons of earth or hidden in


inaccessible military camps. Satellite and aerial imagery


is being used to identify disturbed earth; ground-probing


radar also helps locate remains.


When a possible site is identified, a team including an


archaeologist, anthropologist, surveyor, geologist,


crime-scene officer, and satellite image technician—


plus military support—goes to assess the site.


The CPA’s Office of Human Rights and Transitional


Justice has complied a list of 270 reported sites across


the country. Many sites are in the southwest and central


areas around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.


Exhumations require heavy machinery as well as 


excavation, mortuary, security, military, and explosives


experts. The team of 20–30 people will need living


accommodations for four to six weeks.


Iraqi Human Rights Minister Abdul-Basit Turki said that


in addition to families’ need to find the bodies of missing


relatives, excavating mass graves is important in building


criminal cases against members of the former regime.


IRAQIS WERE NOT THE ONLY 

VICTIMS 

It was not just Iraqi citizens who disappeared into the 

mass graves. 

“Despite several well-publicized exchanges with Kuwait, 

Saudi Arabia, and Iran, the regime effectively ignored 

Workers remove remains from a mass grave. After identification, 

bodies are wrapped in shrouds and carried to a makeshift morgue. 
requests from those governments to account for those 

who disappeared during Iraq’s 1990–91 occupation of 

Kuwait, and prisoners of war captured in the 1980–88 

Iran-Iraq war,” said the State Department report. 

After the liberation of Iraq, reports surfaced that all 

600 Kuwaitis carried into captivity in Iraq by retreating 

troops in 1991 were executed. 

Egyptian officials also said they were seeking information about hundreds—possibly thousands—of Egyptian 

citizens who died or disappeared after they traveled to 

Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war to take jobs. Many were 

returned home in coffins—without explanations of how 

they died. 

A PLAN FOR ACTION 

Iraqi and U.S. foreign aid officials have prepared a plan 

for a long-range process of excavation that will meet all 

the needs for humanitarian, emotional, and judicial 

resolution of the mass graves. First, Iraqis with skills in 

forensic anthropology or simply archaeology are being 

identified to receive training by international forensic 

experts. Second, communities are being asked to 

recommend academics and professionals who want to 

learn the basics of forensic science. They will undergo 

training in humanitarian exhumation and the fundamentals of basic skeletal anatomy to facilitate the 

identification process. 

The nuts and bolts of the exhumation process have also 

been planned: exhumation protocols, nationwide standard operating procedures, administration, and logistical 

support. Construction is underway to renovate a storage 

facility into a centralized evidence repository. Local 

human rights organizations are being funded to increase 

their capacity to organize and collect documents, evidence, and names of the missing. This will eventually tie 

in to a national outreach program for families seeking 

information on missing relatives. Information on missing 

persons that local organizations are collecting will be 

moved to the central evidence repository. There a fulltime Iraqi staff will work to compile a comprehensive 

database. The information will then be passed to human 

rights organizations in communities across Iraq. 

There are ongoing efforts to collect, verify, and combine 

information on suspected mass grave sites. A Danish 

forensic team arrived in Iraq in October, and a Finnish 

team was expected soon after. Swedish and German 

governments have also offered varying levels of 

assistance. Until the international teams are in place, 

forensic site assessments are being used to prioritize 

8–16 carefully selected mass graves for a full forensic 

exhumation based on the following criteria: 

■ the grave represents a main period of atrocity 

■ the grave is relatively untouched 

■ the grave may give evidence of crimes against 

humanity 

■ the local population permits securing and 

exhumation of the site 

A media campaign has begun through the daily newspaper Al Sabah, Iraqi Media Network, and other media 

outlets to explain the need to preserve grave sites. 

Getting the word out on a national level will help identify the missing and encourage citizens to come forward 

with evidence of atrocities. Although there are few 

reports of local impatience with the exhumation 

process, local and religious leaders, nongovernmental 

organizations, and the media must be continually 

engaged on the need to protect grave sites and 

encouraged to have patience with the process. 

The Iraqi Governing Council set a major marker on the 

path to resolving the issue of the mass killings when it 

announced there will be a national tribunal for criminals. This is the next, unwritten chapter of this story. ■ 

Remains unearthed in a mass grave in Musayib are prepared for reburial 

by family members. 

Ir aq’s Mass Gr aves 

5 
Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

6 

ALI’S STOR Y 

Ali,* 36, an aircraft mechanic, was driving his family 

from Al Hillah to his farm in Mahawil on March 6, 

1991, during the Shiite uprising after the end of the 

Gulf War. The city was being bombed. 

Ali was stopped at a military checkpoint outside the city 

near a brick factory and ordered to get out. His wife, 

newborn baby, and handicapped mother were ordered 

to drive away. 

Ali was ordered to remove his jacket, and uniformed 

men tied his hands and feet with his jacket and pieces 

of cloth and placed a blindfold over his eyes. 

Ali could still see through the blindfold, however, and 

saw about 12 other people, including men, women, 

children, and elderly, pulled from cars, bound, and 

blindfolded. 

They were dragged to a white Toyota Land Cruiser and 

piled on top of each other over the seats. No words 

were spoken, because when others attempted to speak 

they received severe blows to the head and body. 

It was approximately 10 a.m. when they arrived at the 

Mahawil military camp on the outskirts of the city. There 

they were unloaded, registered, and escorted into a 

large assembly hall filled with approximately 200 people. Everyone was sitting on the floor with their hands 

and feet tied. They were blindfolded and positioned 

facing the walls. 

Ali was placed near the door and could see outside. At 

about 4:30 p.m., the military men built a large ring of 

tires about 20 feet wide and set it on fire. Next to the 

fire were large buses, and the soldiers began escorting 

people from the hall to the buses. At this time, people 

were also being carried out of the hall and thrown into 

the fire. Ali believes that because the military was in a 

hurry to execute them and not everyone would fit on 

the buses, they decided to burn some people alive. After 

about 30 minutes of witnessing this, he was escorted 

from the hall and loaded onto a bus. 

At approximately 6 p.m., they were taken on a short 

drive to a swampy area behind the brick factory. It was 

dark and he saw headlights in front of the buses. He 

believes the lights were headlights from the Land 

Cruisers driven by Saddam’s men. He could hear shots 

but not voices. Ali was paralyzed with fear. Everyone in 

the bus was blindfolded. 

After about 15 minutes, the bus in front of his drove 

away and the headlights were directly on his bus. They 

pulled seven to 10 people off the bus. Shots rang out. 

Ali’s group was the next to be pulled from the bus. In 

his group was a blind man, three brothers, a woman, 

and her five year old son. The group was led to the front 

of the bus where the headlights were directly on them. 

Survivor Stories 

The following testimonials are from survivors of executions that occurred outside Mahawil, a city north of Al Hillah, 

approximately 60 miles south of Baghdad. 

Iraqi women seek to identify remains of lost family 

members. 

An identification card found in a mass grave in Musayib. Remains unearthed in a mass 

reburial. 

* All names have been changed. 
They were pushed to the ground and then were pulled 

up one at a time to be executed. They were pushed a 

couple of feet to the edge of the swamp and shot. Most 

would fall before being shot because they were overcome with fear. Ali does not remember any words being 

spoken—except the plea of the three brothers who 

begged that at least one be spared. They were executed 

one at a time. Next, the woman was shot in front of 

her five-year-old child. The child lunged at the legs of 

the executioner and was kicked away and shot in the 

face. The blind man was then executed and his chest 

exploded on Ali. 

There were three executioners. They took turns shooting 

and reloading. Ali was last in the group to be shot, and 

the soldier who was to execute Ali shot between his 

legs. The soldier was then shot dead by another soldier. 

During this commotion, Ali turned to the swamp, 

jumped over bodies, and ran through the water. They 

shot after him. He was hit in the left hand and foot and 

fell, breaking his nose. He continued on and made it to 

the other side of the swamp. 

A tractor with soldiers came in his direction looking for 

him, so he tossed his robe into the water and hid in a 

thicket of cane. The soldiers saw his robe and sprayed it 

with bullets thinking they had shot him. A bulldozer 

appeared next and began shoveling dirt on it to cover 

what they thought was his body. Ali was very near and 

was knocked unconscious by falling rocks, but he was 

not completely buried. When the bulldozer left, he 

pulled himself out of the dirt and crawled to an empty 

canal. He could still hear shots in the distance: a third 

bus had arrived during his escape. 

Ali crawled through the canal for about 30 minutes, 

making his way to a farmhouse. He knocked on the 

door, and was taken in by the family, which told him 

later that he “was a piece of blood.” He doesn’t remember much about the care they provided him except for 

the yogurt they fed him and the heater they placed near 

him. The family knew his uncles, so they clothed him, 

gave him a donkey and a cane, and told him to follow 

the canal to an uncle’s house. Ali made it there, and his 

uncle cleaned him and took him to Baghdad the next 

day. He hid there for one month without telling anyone 

except his uncle. He returned home to discover his two 

brothers had been executed in similar roundups. 

He left the neighborhood and changed his identity. 

He was also protected by an intelligence officer in his 

neighborhood. When Saddam was toppled, he resumed 

his identity after having been in hiding for over 12 

years. He is a member of the Human Rights Association 

of Al Hillah. ■ 

Survivor Stories 

7 grave are prepared for After identification and preparation for reburial, a victim is 

moved from the morgue by family members. 

Iraqis look at lists of victims unearthed from a mass grave 

in Musayib. 
MUHANED’S STORY 

Muhaned,* 32, is from Al Hillah. From 1984 to 1991, 

he worked as a nurse in the army. During the 1991 

Shiite uprising he was stationed in the north. On March 

5, he traveled by bus to Al Hillah to see his parents. It 

was winter and he arrived early in the morning. Upon 

entering the city near a brick factory, his bus encountered an army unit near the statue of Saddam. The army 

unit stopped the bus and would not allow entrance into 

the city. The bus driver was told there was a curfew and 

to return to Baghdad. Several people, Muhaned included, got off the bus to walk to Al Hillah. In his group 

were six men (all Army and in uniform), an old man, 

two children, and a woman. The army unit saw them 

approaching and took them into custody. One of the 

men refused to be taken and was beaten in front of the 

group. They were escorted to a military bus and loaded 

in the back. Those who spoke were beaten and called 

traitors. 

They were taken to the Mahawil military camp, where 

their hands were tied behind their backs, and they were 

blindfolded. They were escorted into a large assembly 

hall. Muhaned could hear whispering, but he does not 

believe there were many people in the hall at that time. 

He sat on the floor and fell asleep. Around noon, somebody kicked him and took his name, and he fell asleep 

again. Around 3 p.m., he awoke to see that the hall 

was filled with well over 100 people. His ties had 

loosened and he was able to see. He saw his neighbor. 

He also saw Ali (see first survivor story). They spent the 

entire day without water, food, or toilets. People were 

forced to go to the bathroom where they sat. 

At about 5 p.m. they began loading people onto buses. 

Muhaned was at the back of the hall and was one of the 

last to be escorted out. There was no light in the hall, 

but through the windows, he could see the glow of a 

large fire. He could smell rubber burning. 

People were being escorted out to the buses in groups 

of about 20 at a time. Some people, however, were 

picked up and thrown into the fire. Muhaned and those 

around him could hear the screaming. A woman yelled 

at a soldier, “Why are you burning these people?” She 

was told, “They are criminals.” From this, Muhaned felt 

safe because he had done nothing wrong. 

As the hall emptied, a soldier pointed at his group and 

said “Take them. Captain Abbar has signed for them.” 

Muhaned did not understand what this meant and 

began crying and praying. When he exited the hall, the 

fire was only three to four meters from the entrance. 

Those who were walking slowly, or whose feet were 

tied, were thrown in the fire. The rest, including 

Muhaned, were escorted to the buses. 

Around midnight, they drove to a muddy road next to 

the swamp behind the brick factory. On one side was a 

swamp and on the other side a canal. He saw a white 

Toyota Land Cruiser and a bulldozer on the edge of the 

swamp. The Land Cruiser’s headlights acted as a spotlight on the front of the bus at the edge of the swamp. 

Baath party members piled out of the Land Cruiser and 

another bus and began loading their weapons. 

Muhaned and the others were escorted off their bus and 

forced to crouch at the edge of the swamp in several 

rows of six. At their feet were dead bodies. A woman 

stood up and silently wrapped herself in her long black 

Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

8 An Iraqi holding the name of a victim on a scrap of paper, 

searches a list of victims. 

Iraqis dig for remains. Workers identify and sort rema 

are wrapped in shrouds and ta 

* All names have been changed. 
robe in the same fashion people are wrapped for a 

funeral. Although he was blindfolded, Muhaned’s hands 

were free, and he moved his ID card into an internal 

pocket, hoping to preserve it so that his body might be 

identified. Everyone was praying. 

Six Baath party members lined up in front and to the 

side of the crouching rows. Muhaned was in the back 

row on the very edge of the swamp. Spotlights shone on 

them. A very large Egyptian man near Muhaned kept 

asking why they were being executed. At that moment, 

gunfire erupted and the man jumped to his feet. His 

body was sprayed with bullets and the force of his body 

knocked Muhaned back, flattening him and pushing 

him partially into the swamp. The Egyptian’s body completely covered him. The shooting lasted for about 30 

seconds. The soldiers surveyed the bodies and discovered one person was still alive and moaning. They killed 

him. They did not discover Muhaned. 

The buses and Land Cruisers left the area. The bulldozer 

began to approach. At this point, Muhaned pulled 

himself out from under the dead Egyptian and hid in 

the cane so the bulldozer driver would not discover 

him. He could taste blood, but found no wounds on his 

body. He watched the bulldozer push the bodies into 

the swamp and cover them with mud. 

After the bulldozer left, Muhaned made his way to the 

canal and followed it until sunrise. He ended up in 

Al Hillah near the courthouse. He went to the river to 

wash the remains of the Egyptian from his body. A man 

spotted him and questioned him about the human 

remains on his shoulder. Muhaned refused to tell him 

anything and the man offered to help. He provided 

Muhaned with food and set him on the path to his 

house, telling him to stay within the farms. When 

Muhaned arrived home, he found that the army had 

bombed his house. Thankfully, his family had not been 

injured and he was reunited with them shortly afterward. He did not tell his family what happened, but 

his wife discovered through his recurrent nightmares. 

Muhaned went to see a psychologist but did not tell 

the true story. A few months later he ran into Ali again, 

whom he had seen in the hall. Both believed the other 

had been executed. They agreed never to speak of what 

happened. “Our lives depend on our tongues now,” 

they said. They made a pact to claim to dislike each 

other so that if either were caught and forced to speak 

about the other’s capture and attempted execution, the 

other could claim it was a lie. They both forged documents, obtained new identities, and did not speak about 

their shared horror. They’ve lived in constant fear for 

over 12 years—fear of being discovered, recaptured, 

tortured, or killed. Muhaned was suspicious of everything. Any time a car parked in front of his house he 

felt panic. 

Finally, out of fear, Muhaned left Iraq for Syria in 2000, 

but returned after the fall of Saddam. Now, Muhaned 

and Ali are close friends. “For the first time in over 12 

years, I am free and living without fear in my country,” 

says Muhaned, who is working with the Coalition 

Provisional Authority and the Al Hillah Human Rights 

Association. ■ 

ains. When identified, victims 

aken to a makeshift morgue. 

A victim found in a mass grave in Musayib still wears a 

blindfold. 

Remains of Iraqis removed from a mass grave in Musayib 

lie wrapped in linen shrouds. 

Survivor Stories 

9 
HAMID’S STORY 

Hamid* was born in Al Hillah in 1963, left school after 

the ninth grade, and began working in his family’s bakery. In 1982, like all Iraqi men, Hamid was required to 

join the military. He fought in the Iran-Iraq war, was 

wounded and disabled in 1985, but continued to serve 

in the army until 1991. 

Hamid participated in the uprising that followed 

Saddam’s retreat from Kuwait and southern Iraq. Many 

former army men participated in killing Baath party 

members in the south. In March 1991, Saddam’s 

revenge was brutal: executions were carried out all over 

Iraq. Saddam sent forces throughout the country, imposing curfews and ruthless military rule. 

Hamid recalled seeing a woman and child crossing a 

road after having received permission to do so. When 

the child dropped something and his mother went to 

pick it up, she was shot. Military planes flew over Al 

Hillah and dropped leaflets informing people to evacuate the city because chemical weapons would follow. 

People were in a state of panic. Military units patrolled 

the city with loudspeakers telling soldiers to return to 

their units and advising them that there would be an 

amnesty. No one believed it. 

Hamid and his brother Hyder, then 19 and also a former 

soldier, decided to escape to Baghdad, where they 

believed it would be safer. As they were crossing a 

bridge leading into Baghdad they were stopped at a 

checkpoint, blindfolded, and had their hands tied 

behind their backs. They and 18 others were driven to 

the Mahawil military camp. 

In the camp’s yard, they could hear the sound of pipes 

and cables hitting people and of people’s screams. His 

group was forced to squat in the yard for hours. Anyone 

who fell or spoke was beaten. Then they were “lined up 

like cattle” and forced to march as the soldiers jeered at 

them. 

Their blindfolds were removed near the entrance of a 

large hall. Hamid heard the sound of a skull cracking. 

He turned and saw an old man lying on the ground, 

blood gushing from his head. The man had fallen out of 

line during the march. 

They were packed tightly into a hall with about 400 

people. Hamid was in the corner of the hall and near a 

window. There was a fire outside—a large ring of burning tires. He saw a man he knew being led from another 

hall. The man was bleeding and stumbling in the yard. 

Soldiers surrounded him and beat him with cables. 

Soldiers from Hamid’s hall went outside to join in the 

beating. The man fell to the ground and was knocked 

unconscious. The soldiers then picked him up and threw 

him into the fire. 

Hamid could see an officer named Abu Diba in the 

yard. Abu Diba ordered the soldiers to throw one of his 

own men into the fire: the man had appeared to object 

to what was happening. Three soldiers grabbed him and 

shoved him into the fire. Hamid could see the soldier 

struggling to get up but his legs were tangled in the 

tires. Hamid blacked out. 

After hours of standing in the hall, the soldiers filled 

the floor of the hall with about six inches of water. This 

prevented anyone from sitting on the floor or sleeping. 

It was winter and very cold. They stood like this for 24 

hours. During this time, soldiers would enter and call 

out a name and say “Ahmed Hassan, your family is here 

for you. Please come forward.” As the person came forAweda Abed Al-Amer grieves over two members of her 

family found in a mass grave in Musayib. 

Iraqis dig for remains from a mass grave in Musayib. After identification and sorting 

linen shrouds and taken to a m 

* All names have been changed. 

Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

10 
ward, he would be escorted to the yard where his feet 

would be tied to a pole or a piece of wood. Then he 

would be suspended upside down and soldiers would 

whip his feet and back with cables. When the prisoner 

lost consciousness, the soldiers would splash him with 

water and continue the beating. 

A soldier entered the hall and told them, “We have 

killed the criminals and we are taking you to your 

units.” They were then blindfolded and escorted out. 

He could hear the buses. They were told to run straight 

ahead where someone would receive them. Those who 

fell or who did not run were beaten to death with pipes. 

He could hear people falling to the ground and the 

sound of bones cracking and of blood splattering. He 

could hear the screaming and moaning of people being 

beaten to death. 

The 50 survivors were loaded onto the bus. The buses 

pulled out and traveled for approximately 15 minutes; 

the road was rough. 

When they stopped, people were unloaded in groups of 

three or four and led to the tops of small mounds of dirt. 

He heard a guard ask if there were any more left and 

when another answered no, gunfire erupted. Hamid’s 

neck was grazed by a bullet; he felt bullets entering his 

leg. The force of the shots knocked him backward into a 

hole—a grave. He landed upside down with his feet in 

the air. Other bodies fell on him and pushed him down 

a slope. The executioners fired another round of “mercy 

bullets” directly into the holes, trying to ensure that the 

people were dead. Then there was silence. 

A few moments later the buses left and a bulldozer 

pushed dirt over the graves. Hamid’s gravesite was on a 

slope that descended to a swamp. Because he slid down 

the slope, he was only partially buried. He could hear 

someone near him moaning. The man, an Egyptian, told 

him that the soldiers had left and that he could see the 

headlights on the main road. Hamid asked the Egyptian 

where he was shot, and the man replied that only his 

toes were injured. Hamid couldn’t move due to his 

injuries, and he was partially buried. The Egyptian, 

Muhammed, pulled him out of the mud and up the 

slope to the edge. Hamid’s leg was severely broken— 

the bone had pierced through his skin. 

They crossed the river. Muhammed helped him crawl 

up the bank by pulling him up with a cane. They hid 

in a canal. Hamid was very cold and thought he was 

dying. He asked Muhammed to go back and look for 

his brother. Muhammed confirmed that everyone at the 

site was dead. 

They continued through the canal and then crossed 

some farmlands, drinking water from rivers. They traveled like this for days. A farmer discovered them on his 

land and shot at the Egyptian. Hamid convinced him to 

hold his fire. The farmer took them in and provided 

shelter in one of his buildings, but he told them they 

could not remain long. He left them and promised to 

return in one hour. Hamid and Muhammed were sure 

he would return with the military. Hamid urged 

Muhammed to leave to save himself, but he refused. 

The farmer returned with food and hot tea. After they 

ate, he treated the wound on Hamid’s neck but told him 

he couldn’t treat the leg until the morning. At dawn he 

returned and said he couldn’t sleep and was praying for 

him throughout the night. He gave Hamid a pillow to 

put over his face and proceeded to remove two bullets 

from Hamid’s leg. He used a pair of rusty pliers and 

scissors to dig the bullets out. He removed fragments of 

g, remains are wrapped in 

makeshift morgue. 

Workers search remains for identifying items. . After identification and sorting, remains are tagged, wrapped 

in linen shrouds, and taken to a makeshift morgue. 

Survivor Stories 

11 
bone as well. He placed a splint on his leg and 

wrapped it with cloth. He gave them a donkey and a 

three-day supply of food. 

Hamid rode on the donkey and Muhammed led 

the way. He lost track of time. They felt they were 

being followed. 

They made it to a village near Al Hillah—where 

Hamid’s aunt lived. The aunt took him to the family 

farm. Muhammed stayed the night and continued 

north the next day. Hamid received medical care 

from a family friend who came to the farm. 

Hamid then decided he should return to his army unit. 

He went to Amara because he had many friends in the 

town. He put on his military uniform, and his family 

drove him to Amara. There were checkpoints all along 

the route, but they had no problems. Their car ran out 

of fuel and he saw a truck carrying regular army troops. 

He told them he had been injured but provided no 

details. He felt they had a good idea of what happened, 

and they viewed him as a hero and allowed him to join 

them. They took him to a military hospital where he was 

treated by Saddam loyalists. He told them he was in an 

accident and made no mention of bullets. When the 

x-ray showed that a third bullet remained in his leg, 

he became worried that he would be discovered. 

Soon after, he was offered a job in Baghdad with the 

highest level of the party as a supervisor for a building 

contractor. He decided instead to buy a car and work as 

a taxi driver. He also opened a flower shop in Baghdad. 

In 1994, the “economic police” arrested him and he 

was tortured for 34 days. He was beaten and given electric shocks on his ears, tongue, and nose. They wanted 

him to confess that he was a member of another party— 

all parties other than Baath were illegal. He was finally 

released, but his “criminal” file prevented him from 

gaining employment, so he returned to his flower shop. 

Two years later, in 1996, he was arrested by the 

“intelligence police.” He was beaten and tortured for 

18 days and questioned about the uprising. He was 

finally released but was ordered to close his flower 

shop because he was accused of holding political 

meetings there. 

Hamid closed the shop and returned to Al Hillah with 

his wife and two young children. Since the fall of 

Saddam’s regime, he has helped the Al Hillah Human 

Rights Association identify suspected criminals and has 

assisted in the location of evidence pertaining to 

mass graves. ■ 

Iraq’s Legacy of Terror 

12 Logo for the volunteer grassroots organization, the 

Association of Free Prisoners and Missing Persons. 

Volunteer takes a break from sorting documents to pray. 
USAID Abuse Prevention Officer Jean Geran, carries out an assessment of a mass grave site. 
For more information, contact 

U.S. Agency for International Development 

Washington, D.C. 20523-1000 

Telephone: 202-712-4810 

Internet: www.usaid.gov 

PN-ACW-223 

Arabic version: PN-ACW-224