Newborn babies found in mass grave of Saddam Hussein’s victims uncovered 16 years after his brutal regime was toppled
A MASS grave containing dozens of victims of Saddam Hussein’s bloody and brutal regime is being exhumed after being discovered in the Iraqi desert. The burial site – which even contained the bodies of babies – was uncovered in Tal Al Sheikhiya, in the province of Mutahanna about 200 miles south of Baghdad. More than […]
A MASS grave containing dozens of victims of Saddam Hussein’s bloody and brutal regime is being exhumed after being discovered in the Iraqi desert.
The burial site – which even contained the bodies of babies – was uncovered in Tal Al Sheikhiya, in the province of Mutahanna about 200 miles south of Baghdad.
More than 70 bodies including women and children ranging from newborns to 10 years old were found at the site – more than a decade after the Iraqi dictator was hanged for crimes against humanity.
All those found at the site had been executed and the female victims had been blindfolded before being shot in the head.
Others had bullet wounds scattered across their bodies, it has been reported.
It believed those killed were victims of Saddam’s merciless campaign against the country’s Kurds, which left tens of thousands dead.
The fall of Saddam Hussein
In 2003, a coalition force invaded Iraq. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from 19 March to 9 April 2003.
According to US President George W Bush and British PM Tony Blair, the coalition mission was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”.
In April 2003, Saddam’s whereabouts remained in question during the weeks following the fall of Baghdad and the conclusion of the major fighting of the war.
In July 2003, Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay and 14-year-old grandson were killed in a three-hour gunfight with the US forces.
On 13 December 2003, Saddam was captured by American forces at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near Tikrit in a hole in Operation Red Dawn.
On 30 June 2004, Saddam , held in custody by US forces along with 11 other senior Ba’athist leaders, were handed over legally (though not physically) to the interim Iraqi Government to stand trial for their crimes.
On 5 November 2006, Saddam was tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.
Saddam was hanged on the first day of Eid ul-Adha 30 December 2006, despite his wish to be shot, which he felt would be more dignified.
The execution was carried out at Camp Justice, an Iraqi Army base in northeast Baghdad.
Mutahanna province is also home to the notorious Nigrat Salman prison camp.
Many Kurds and political opponents of the regime were held there, and survivors shared tales of humiliation, rape and detention of minors as part of Saddam’s 2006 trial.
It’s believed up to 180,000 people who may have been killed during Saddam’s ‘Anfal’ campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s when chemical gas was used, villages were razed and thousands of Kurds were forced into camps.
The operation took place between 1987 and 1988 and saw nearly Kurds killed and more than 3,000 villages destroyed.
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Men and boys of ‘battle age’ were targeted and executed en-masse and were tied together and shot so they fell into mass graves.
Of the total victims of Anfal, an estimated 70 per cent were men, approximately aged 15 to 50
The genocidal campaign takes its name from Suratal-Anfal in the Qur’an – Al Anfal literally means the spoils of war.
