DNA Tests Needed to Identify Bodies Found in Mass Graves in Iraq
Prensa Latina
Baghdad, May 17, 2013 (Prensa Latina) Deputy Governor in the Western Iraqi province of Al Anbar, Sadun Obaid al-Shalan, today called for using DNA tests to identify about a thousand bodies found in three mass graves on Thursday.
Security forces and human rights organizations found the mass graves with containing around a thousand bodies in the northern city of Fallujah, and it appears that they were killed en masse in summary executions by U.S. occupation forces, said Sadun Obaid al-Shalan.
Fallujah put up strong resistance in 2004 when U.S. troops were sent to occupy the city, which was almost completely destroyed after the fighting.
After entering the town, the U.S. troops unleashed a fierce reprisal against male residents considered suspects for having participated in the resistance.
The mass burial was found in three graves between Saqlawiyah and Ameriyah localities, said the deputy governor, and it is presumed that those people were killed in 2004 and 2005, with their deaths never reported during the combat to retake control of the city.
According to estimates, around 5,000 people died, including many women and children, in the fierce U.S. air strikes on Fallujah.
The U.S. led the coalition that invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 on the pretext that the government of then President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.Source
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