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CNN Live Sunday
Iraqis Search for Dead, Missing Loved Ones
Aired April 27, 2003 - 17:42 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: As Iraqis try to rebuild their lives, they are also searching for dead and missing loved ones, many of them snatched by Saddam Hussein's secret police, taken away, disappeared.
CNN's Jim Clancy has the story of a buried past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the bottom of the spiral stairs, busy volunteers scour a mountain of disheveled files. They were taken from the ministry of intelligence as the regime collapsed. They are the evidence a dictatorship wanted to bury forever in darkness. A shaft of sunlight pierces a page, a list of names, an execution order, a signature synonymous with death, the signature of Saddam Hussein.
This is headquarters for the self-styled Committee to Free Prisoners, along the Tigris River in the capital. It was once the home of a relative of Saddam Hussein, and key figure in his secret police.
(on camera): Each day thousands of Iraqis come here scanning the list behind me for names of loved ones. Daring to ask the very questions they would never ask before.
(voice-over): If you asked about them, one man told me, you would be hanged. Across the street a hundred stories gush from the mouths of people no longer afraid to speak. Mothers looking for lost sons. Men describing a brother taken away so young he still had marbles in his pockets. Some rushed to desperation's doorstep to hand workers a scrap of paper with a name, a date, a place, a prayer that somehow they will find their answers. Others stand in silent grief, holding what they have left of a life that is just as dear today as it was five, ten, or 25 years ago. If they came in hopes of finding anyone alive, those hopes are soon destroyed. They give way to modest expectations of a number on a nameless grave.
His number was 636. He disappeared in the southern city of Nasiriya in 1996. His name was Yassir Abdullah Hussein (ph). Yassir Abudallah's (ph) family reunion in a windswept graveyard is marked by tears and the sounds of shovels digging in the sand. No celebration this. But there is beauty in the determination to show he was loved, he was dear, he was deserving of so much more than this. Some said he was a political activist. Others said there was never any reason he was taken away, jailed for two years, probably tortured and then killed. The remains of Yassir Abdullah Hussein (ph) are few. But they are reverently gathered up and placed in a coffin, decorated with verses of the holy Quran. Executed prisoner 636 is finally going home.
Jim Clancy, CNN, Abu Gharib cemetery, Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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 April 27, 2003 - 17:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: As Iraqis try to rebuild their lives, they are also searching for dead and missing loved ones, many of them snatched by Saddam Hussein's secret police, taken away, disappeared.
CNN's Jim Clancy has the story of a buried past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the bottom of the spiral stairs, busy volunteers scour a mountain of disheveled files. They were taken from the ministry of intelligence as the regime collapsed. They are the evidence a dictatorship wanted to bury forever in darkness. A shaft of sunlight pierces a page, a list of names, an execution order, a signature synonymous with death, the signature of Saddam Hussein.
This is headquarters for the self-styled Committee to Free Prisoners, along the Tigris River in the capital. It was once the home of a relative of Saddam Hussein, and key figure in his secret police.
(on camera): Each day thousands of Iraqis come here scanning the list behind me for names of loved ones. Daring to ask the very questions they would never ask before.
(voice-over): If you asked about them, one man told me, you would be hanged. Across the street a hundred stories gush from the mouths of people no longer afraid to speak. Mothers looking for lost sons. Men describing a brother taken away so young he still had marbles in his pockets. Some rushed to desperation's doorstep to hand workers a scrap of paper with a name, a date, a place, a prayer that somehow they will find their answers. Others stand in silent grief, holding what they have left of a life that is just as dear today as it was five, ten, or 25 years ago. If they came in hopes of finding anyone alive, those hopes are soon destroyed. They give way to modest expectations of a number on a nameless grave.
His number was 636. He disappeared in the southern city of Nasiriya in 1996. His name was Yassir Abdullah Hussein (ph). Yassir Abudallah's (ph) family reunion in a windswept graveyard is marked by tears and the sounds of shovels digging in the sand. No celebration this. But there is beauty in the determination to show he was loved, he was dear, he was deserving of so much more than this. Some said he was a political activist. Others said there was never any reason he was taken away, jailed for two years, probably tortured and then killed. The remains of Yassir Abdullah Hussein (ph) are few. But they are reverently gathered up and placed in a coffin, decorated with verses of the holy Quran. Executed prisoner 636 is finally going home.
Jim Clancy, CNN, Abu Gharib cemetery, Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
