Mon, May 03, 2004 - Page 9 News List

Graveyard near Fallujah reveals Iraqi side of story

By Christine Hauser  /  NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , FALLUJAH, IRAQ

The place where the new dead lie in this city west of Baghdad was once a soccer stadium called the Fallujah Sports Club.

But now, after weeks of fighting between U.S. Marines and insurgents, it is known as the Fallujah Martyrs Cemetery.

In handwritten Arabic lettering on the stone markers are the names of two children, Amal and Mustafa Alawi, killed in Jolan, a poor neighborhood in Fallujah where much of the fighting has taken place.

"There are 250 people buried here from American strikes on houses," said a gravedigger who gave only his first name, Nasser. "We have stacked up the bodies one on top of the other."

The headstones in this makeshift cemetery were silent witnesses to part of the Iraqi side of the brutal story.

The gravediggers said that the cemetery was full of women and children. But there were signs of fallen fighters -- some of the headstones had the Arabic word for "hero" inscribed alongside the names. There were also the marks of civilian victims, as some of them read "child."

The Iraqi Health Ministry has tried to piece together the number of Iraqis killed in the fighting. The ministry said 271 people have been killed since the offensive began on April 5. Doctors quoted by news agencies have cited more than double that number.

This cemetery contains other unanswered questions.

One headstone read simply "unknown," but it recorded where the person had been killed, Hay Askari, another district in this city of about 300,000 people where fighting has taken place since the siege started early this month.

US officials say that foreign fighters are among those battling Marines in the town.

Last Tuesday afternoon, there were the sounds of ongoing battle, despite a declared truce.

The rattle of machine-gun fire and explosions that sounded like tank rounds could be heard in the distance.

"Hear that?" said one man who stopped to listen with other residents and a few fighters in the cemetery, their faces shrouded with scarves and clutching machine guns.

Judging by the littered ground, bodies had been brought in from hospitals or by ambulance medics. Surgical gloves and masks had been tossed near the graves. Boxes of incense had been spent and discarded, and palm fronds were stuck into the dirt of grave mounds.

More room was being made for graves in the center of the stadium, where the turf had been tilled with trenches deep enough to stand in.

"There are still a lot of bodies out there," Hamza said. "But we can't get them because of the fighting."

Some of the corpses were pulled out from under the rubble of bombed homes, said Iraqis at the cemetery. One grave was simply marked "hand." Another "fingers." One man, Abu Abdullah, was described as "mutilated by the Americans."

Fallujah has been the center of strong resistance to the year-old U.S.-led military occupation, but the offensive began after the killing of four American security contractors here in late March.

Under a truce plan that has so far failed to end fighting, insurgents were called on to surrender their weapons, and Iraqi security units were to begin joint patrols with Americans to keep the peace.

These elements appeared to be in place in one neighborhood April 27, though not quite as intended.

The main road that divides the city, cutting through the central Hay Askari area of single-story houses and apartment blocks, was dead calm. There were few vehicles on the road. Most shops were shuttered. Occasionally a face could be seen peeking out from a home's dark interior.

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