Syria

Malet, Donnerstag, 17. April 2003, 22:20 (vor 8023 Tagen) @ Malet

Mass graves containing up to 3,000 bodies are
believed to have been found in Iraq.

They were discovered just outside the northern
city of Kirkuk, reports said.


Kurdish officials said the area was used by the
Iraqi army to bury the Kurds they killed in the
late 1980s.

The site of the unmarked graves lies close to an
old Iraqi base, reports said.

But Iraqis said dead Iraqis were buried in the
graves, the reports added.

Killed

US military officials said they were aware of the
reports but had no further details.

At least 100,000 Kurds were believed to have been
killed in Saddam Hussein´s policy of ethnic
cleansing in Iraq during the 1980s.

The UN is meanwhile investigating reports that
Saddam ordered thousands of people to be executed.

Slaughter

A former Iraqi colonel claims to have witnessed
the slaughter of thousands of Kurds and Shi´ite
Muslims in the 1980s and 90s.

Victims, who were told they were being
"relocated", were packed into overcrowded buses
and taken to sites in the desert west of Baghdad.

They were then either shot or buried alive, the
security forces colonel said.

Machine-gunned

The unnamed colonel said: "Some were lined up and
machine-gunned before being covered with sand.

"Others were just buried alive."

He said some of the alleged killings were ordered
after the Shi´ite uprisings in southern Iraq at
the time of the first Gulf War in 1991.




Last Updated: 19:48 UK, Thursday April 17, 2003