Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

Families Search for Mass Graves East of Baghdad

Aired June 07, 2003 - 08:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A few miles east of Baghdad, grieving families have the grim task of searching a mass grave site for loved ones.
CNN's Matthew Chance is live in Baghdad with the latest.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Sanjay.

And this is another one of those stories that really reopens the wounds inflicted on the people of this country throughout the years of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. This time the mass grave site was found at a location about 40 kilometers, about 25 miles or so, to the south of the capital, Baghdad. It's a camp, a training camp, a former training camp of the Iraqi secret police.

A lot of unknowns about what exactly is contained in the mass grave site, which was being hurriedly excavated by local villagers. It's not exactly known when and where the people were killed before they were deposited at this location. It's not known how many bodies there may be beneath the soil there.

But a lot of people from the surrounding areas, a lot of villagers very desperate, very hopeful that they may find some of their lost loved ones, their lost relatives who have disappeared over the course of the last couple of decades or so, since Saddam Hussein was in power.

This is a scene that has been repeated across the country since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Human rights groups say as many as 290,000 people are unaccounted for from those years of the dictatorship, many of them believed to have been killed, executed by Saddam Hussein's security forces in purges against the ethnic minorities in this country, against the Kurdish minority in the north of the country and in this area against the Shiites.

Again, a very emotional scene there, and, again, as I say, repeated across the country -- Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes, and some very gruesome pictures. Maybe a gruesome question as well, Matthew. How did they stumble upon this mass grave site? And do they think there are others like this around the country?

CHANCE: Well, the way they stumbled upon it was that when the training camp was abandoned by Saddam Hussein's security forces in the days after Baghdad fell, or perhaps before that, when U.S. forces swept across the region, local villagers moved in to loot, I expect, to take over the land, and came upon what they say was a ditch filled with what some people say were 115 bodies, although I have to stress the exact number on this occasion isn't exactly known.

They filled it in for the time being because apparently the bodies were obviously smelling a great deal. They just started excavating again.

That other question, yes, as I say, 290,000 people across the country said by human rights groups to be missing. These are scenes, the sort of random excavations, the unchecked excavations of sites, that's happening all over the country. And it's coming, the coalition forces here are coming in for a great deal of criticism because, remember, these are potentially very major crime scenes. The evidence here, which is obviously being disrupted by these desperate families, is being destroyed, making it more difficult to bring prosecutions against those who were responsible -- Sanjay.

GUPTA: All right, Matthew Chance in Baghdad.

Be safe out there, my friend.

For more on post-war Iraq, check out cnn.com. It has the latest information on rebuilding the war town country. That's at e-mail, AOL keyword: CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired June 7, 2003 - 08:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A few miles east of Baghdad, grieving families have the grim task of searching a mass grave site for loved ones.
CNN's Matthew Chance is live in Baghdad with the latest.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Sanjay.

And this is another one of those stories that really reopens the wounds inflicted on the people of this country throughout the years of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. This time the mass grave site was found at a location about 40 kilometers, about 25 miles or so, to the south of the capital, Baghdad. It's a camp, a training camp, a former training camp of the Iraqi secret police.

A lot of unknowns about what exactly is contained in the mass grave site, which was being hurriedly excavated by local villagers. It's not exactly known when and where the people were killed before they were deposited at this location. It's not known how many bodies there may be beneath the soil there.

But a lot of people from the surrounding areas, a lot of villagers very desperate, very hopeful that they may find some of their lost loved ones, their lost relatives who have disappeared over the course of the last couple of decades or so, since Saddam Hussein was in power.

This is a scene that has been repeated across the country since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Human rights groups say as many as 290,000 people are unaccounted for from those years of the dictatorship, many of them believed to have been killed, executed by Saddam Hussein's security forces in purges against the ethnic minorities in this country, against the Kurdish minority in the north of the country and in this area against the Shiites.

Again, a very emotional scene there, and, again, as I say, repeated across the country -- Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes, and some very gruesome pictures. Maybe a gruesome question as well, Matthew. How did they stumble upon this mass grave site? And do they think there are others like this around the country?

CHANCE: Well, the way they stumbled upon it was that when the training camp was abandoned by Saddam Hussein's security forces in the days after Baghdad fell, or perhaps before that, when U.S. forces swept across the region, local villagers moved in to loot, I expect, to take over the land, and came upon what they say was a ditch filled with what some people say were 115 bodies, although I have to stress the exact number on this occasion isn't exactly known.

They filled it in for the time being because apparently the bodies were obviously smelling a great deal. They just started excavating again.

That other question, yes, as I say, 290,000 people across the country said by human rights groups to be missing. These are scenes, the sort of random excavations, the unchecked excavations of sites, that's happening all over the country. And it's coming, the coalition forces here are coming in for a great deal of criticism because, remember, these are potentially very major crime scenes. The evidence here, which is obviously being disrupted by these desperate families, is being destroyed, making it more difficult to bring prosecutions against those who were responsible -- Sanjay.

GUPTA: All right, Matthew Chance in Baghdad.

Be safe out there, my friend.

For more on post-war Iraq, check out cnn.com. It has the latest information on rebuilding the war town country. That's at e-mail, AOL keyword: CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com