IRAQ: They had marched to Najaf to support a mission by Iraq's top Shia cleric to end the fighting consuming the holy city. But at least 15 of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's supporters were shot dead during their peace march and 65 ended up in hospital suffering from bullet wounds.
"There were thousands of us. The police told us to sit down and they would provide security. Suddenly they started shooting all around and I could see wounded people," said Mahdi Jaber, who came to Najaf from Samarra to support Sistani.
Some of the participants said gunmen joined their march and opened fire on police, who then started shooting everywhere and prompting thousands of people to scatter. Others said the police fired first.
Whatever the case, those who came to catch a glimpse of the moderate Ayatollah Sistani after he returned from medical treatment in London to try to restore peace to the shattered city merely got a first-hand view of the chaos gripping Najaf.
Ambulances rushed to the scene but could only rescue a limited number of people because they were halted by sniper fire around Medina street, a front line that separates Shia militants from US and Iraqi government forces.
Staff at the overwhelmed al- Hakim hospital, including some who wept at the bloodshed, loaded corpses with bullet holes in the head on stretchers in the courtyard. As one was piled on another, blood dripped down on to the cement.
As new victims were rushed into the bare emergency room, one man sat in a wheelchair after being treated for his wounds and explained how the march was suddenly caught up in the violence.
"We wanted to follow Sistani through Najaf or go to the Imam Ali shrine," said Hazim Kareem from Baghdad.
"The police would not let us and you know we are religious, so we kept arguing and suddenly gunmen joined the march and started firing at police. Then the police went crazy and fired everywhere." Others with high hopes were also bitterly disappointed.
Haythim Bandar and his brother Abbas travelled to Najaf from Kut to do what they could to help restore Najaf to its former status as a sacred city with throngs of pilgrims visiting the Imam Ali shrine, now home to many of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militants battling US and Iraqi forces.
By the end of the day, Haythim was standing outside the hospital calling home to tell his family that Abbas had a bullet lodged near his spinal cord.
"Don't worry. He is in the care of God now," he said.
Three men whose brother was shot dead in the street wandered out of the emergency room weeping as they sunk their faces on to their car hood.
Outside the gates, a car drove off with a corpse in the half-open trunk, its feet hanging over the side.