Telegraph | News | Baghdad morgue struggles to cope with flow of bodies

Telegraph | News | Baghdad morgue struggles to cope with flow of bodies: "By Oliver Poole in Baghdad
(Filed: 05/05/2006)

The month after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra was the bloodiest in Baghdad's modern history, with 1,294 bodies arriving at the city's morgue.
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Under Iraqi medical law the morgue does not deal with any person who has died from natural causes as they can have their death certificate issued by a doctor.

According to Dr Hassan, the period since the Samarra bombing has seen an average of 35 to 50 bodies delivered every day. At one point freezer trucks had to be brought in and parked outside as the facility's storage rooms could not cope with the numbers.

Before the 2003 invasion the daily average of bodies the morgue received was between seven and 10, he said.

What has been particularly disturbing about the bodies being found across the city is not only the number but also how many show signs of having been horrifically tortured before they died.

Autopsy pictures of one man, Mohannad al-Azawi, a Sunni, showed his face covered in purple welts, drill holes in his legs and face and both shoulders broken.

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