Iraqis start burying dead in Fallujah

Iraqi volunteers carry a body in a bag as they walk past US Marines with 3/5 Marines Civil Affairs in the city of Fallujah Tuesday, west of Baghdad. Fourteen bodies were collected. Hundreds of suspected insurgents died in the pitched battle last week between US forces and roving guerrilla fighters, and their rotting corpses litter the city. PHOTO: AFP

"God bless you in paradise," the volunteer said Tuesday, the second day of body collection in the war-ravaged city.

He had found bodies left inside homes, on rooftops and buried in front yards in northwestern Fallujah, hard hit by last week's intense US-led campaign to reclaim the city from Islamist rebels.

Hundreds of suspected insurgents died in the pitched battle last week between US forces and roving guerrilla fighters, and their rotting corpses litter the city.

The US military estimates at least 1,200 insurgents had been killed in Fallujah.

The fighters also carried out gangland style executions on males, shooting them in the head.

There have been no official figures given on the number of non-combattants who have died.

Before civilians can start to return to Fallujah, the bodies must be cleared.

The US marine humanitarian team, known as civil affairs, has organised with people from the neighboring town of Saqlawiyah to remove the bodies and give them a proper Muslim burial.

"They (Iraqis) agreed to put together a working party to clear the dead. They thought it was the right thing to do," said Lieutenant Colonel Leonard DeFrancisci, who heads civil affairs for the 1st Regimental Combat Team.

"They will give them a proper Muslim burial."

Two US armoured vehicles headed to a checkpoint Tuesday north of Fallujah, where two pick-up trucks and a large orange freight truck awaited them.

About 20 men sat solemnly in the back of the vehicles. They were from the Saqlawiya Health Organisation, waiting to be driven into Fallujah.

Not far from the checkpoint, the first 22 bodies picked up on Sunday had already been buried in a graveyard on the dun-coloured desert plain.

Mohammed Ali, 32, stood in the back of a white truck, his brown eyes showing a touch of sadness as he prepared himself for the grisly task ahead.

None of his family was from Fallujah but he felt strongly about clearing the dead.

"They are Iraqis and we are Iraqis," he said. He declined to give his opinion about the assault on Fallujah, just expressing resignation over the destruction in the town.

"It is the same end for every war. A lot of dead bodies."

The party drove into the city of bullet-riddled homes and fire-gutted buildings.

Outside one house, a blackened and red pulpy body, its left leg missing, lay on the pavement.

Four or five men, all wearing gloves and green surgical masks, searched his pockets for identification. They covered him in a blue wool blanket and lifted him into a zip-up black body bag.

A hand grenade rolled out of a pockets before they sealed him in his bag.

One Iraqi jotted down observations in a blue record book and another snapped photos so the dead could later be identified by families.