SAMARRA, Iraq, October 3, 2004 - Waving white flags of surrender, relatives of Samarra’s dead gathered at the gates of the main hospital in the restive Iraqi city on Sunday as volunteers and orderlies carried black body bags out to be buried.
The hospital corridor smelled of decomposing bodies as staff wearing surgical masks lifted corpses out of the building one after the other, shouting out names as they reached the front doors.
"Ali Salman Othman Majid, 20," yelled one hospital employee as another scribbled down the details on a notepad.
A grey-haired man gripped a white handkerchief as he watched his lifeless son being loaded on to a white pick-up truck piled with five other body bags.
His wife and five other women wept as they crammed into the back of his car with four children on their lap.
Two days ago, US and Iraqi forces launched one of the largest post-Saddam Hussein military operations in a first major push to reconquer the country’s insurgent enclaves ahead of planned January elections.
US Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schacht estimated the total death toll from the fighting at more than 150 with around 10 percent of the causalities civilians, although hospital officials said the ratio could be higher.
"My take on it from talking with the hospital and the city council president is that approximately 10 percent of the dead were civilians... not actually involved in fighting," he told AFP.
Standing against the backdrop of the city’s famous 9th century mosque, Schacht said "insurgents had been in control of the hospital until Saturday before abandoning it."
On Sunday, Iraqi national guards and US soldiers were still finding assault rifles, rocket-propelled grande launchers and ammunition.
By Saturday, Iraqi and US forces had largely brought the 250,000-strong rebel bastion under control. "We’re still working on some targets, but it’ll be small raids," Schacht said.
At the hospital, an ageing Iraqi, his face still wet with tears, approached the heavily-guarded premises to claim the bodies of his sister-in-law, five nieces and one nephew he claimed were killed by US fire.
"I blame the Americans for all this. They were driving away from the Al-Khatul neighbourhood where there was intense fighting," Hassan Abbas Mahmud sobbed. Moments later, he left with the bodies.
Head doctor Abdul Hamid said that all of the hospital’s 50-odd corpses would be carried out by noon, some of them wrapped in blankets or black plastic after all the special bags were used up.
US troops took pictures of the some of the hospital’s 120 wounded as they were being transferred to the nearby city of Tikrit due to a shortage in medecines, doctors and electricity.
The head of the city council, Taha Hussein Salah, then arrived on the hospital grounds. Even as he cooperated with the US troops for the evacuation of the bodies, mean glances were exchanged with the colonel.
"We did not request from the interior ministry or any other government official for troops to come into the city," he said as Schacht stood nearby, grimacing.
Wearing a brown dishdasha (robe) and a traditional headdress, he nevertheless sounded conflicted about the operation and admitted: "The problem is that some people here don’t respect anybody, not the sheikhs, not the city council, not the imams."
"That’s why we’re in this situation now," Salah said.
"But for every person who died, there will be five to 15 of his relatives who will want to fight back... and in the end it’s always the innocent who pay the price."
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