The remains of 15,000 people killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein have been found in mass graves discovered last week in the central city of Hilla, site of ancient Babylon, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) said today.
"In the last week, four sites have been discovered in Al-Hilla city alone, with approximately 15,000 bodies," said Mr Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman of the group led by US-backed Ahmed Chalabi.
"Citizens are excavating with great sadness and no assistance, collecting bones. Mothers and fathers are trying to identify their children with ID cards and scraps of clothes that they were last seen in," he told reporters.
He appealed to the US-led coalition's Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), non-governmental organisations and human rights groups "to help the Iraqi people account for hundreds of thousands of missing."
It is reported that at least 3,000 bodies have been dug up at the site so far. A US army official could not confirm the find in the graves, situated around 100 kilometers south of the capital Baghdad.
But residents of Babylon in early May discovered a mass grave believed to date back to a Shiite uprising put down by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War.
US marines at the site then said the bones included those of children aged about 10-12.
The International Committee of the Red Cross announced at the end of April that it had contacted coalition forces to try to check numerous reports about mass graves in Iraq.
AFP