The month after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra was the bloodiest in Baghdad’s modern history, with 1,294 bodies arriving at the city’s morgue.

Ninety per cent had been shot, said the facility’s deputy director, Dr Qaiss Hassan, as official figures were released of the carnage that came after the destruction of the revered Shia holy site on Feb 22.

There was a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings as Shia mobs rampaged through the Iraqi capital, attacking mosques and targeting Sunnis, some of whom then carried out reprisal killings.

Last month, although the numbers dropped from the record set in March, the morgue still had to deal with the arrival of 1,115 bodies.

The figures indicate that in just two months as many people were killed in Baghdad alone as the total number of US troops to have died in the conflict so far.

Under Iraqi medical law the morgue does not deal with any person who has died from natural causes as they can have their death certificate issued by a doctor.
telegraph.co.uk

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