Azzaman, March 26, 2010

The Ministry of Human Rights says its experts have uncovered 84 mass graves all holding victims of violence that engulfed the country in the aftermath of the 2003-U.S. invasion.

Ayam Sharif, head of the ministry’s department of terror victims, said the graves were all discovered last year.

She said the ministry, given its limited resources, does not have the means and expertise to deal with the stream of mass graves that are being discovered in the country.

She said the 84 graves were only those found in two Iraqi provinces: Baghdad and Diyala.

"Last year we discovered 45 graves in the capital Baghdad and 39 in the Province of Diyala," She said.

This is the largest number of mass graves reported to have been unearthed in the country in one year.

The ministry now has a special section called Department of Mass Graves. It was set up to deal with the mass graves of the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

It includes specialists in archaeology, forensic medicine, chemists and media.

Privately, the department’s personnel say it never occurred to them that they would spend most of their time working on mass graves holding the corpses of Iraqis killed following the overthrow of the former regime.