Iraqis Hold Out Hope Loved Ones Will Be Found Alive
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A cemetery on the outskirts of a military base may hold hope for some families of missing Iraqis. The site, near Kirkuk, will be examined by coalition forces and Iraqis to determine who is buried there and why. Our Jane Arraf has the story.</s>JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here at this cemetery. And this grave behind me, actually, has now been dug up three times by various people. And we are no closer to an answer as to who is buried there and in the estimated 1,500 or more graves that we're seeing on the field. Now this was part of the military base. It is quite possible, according to a lot of people, including local policemen, who just left a few minutes ago, after making their own checks of exactly who is buried there, that it is an ordinary Iraqi army cemetery. One of the tragic things about this country is the number of Iraqi soldiers who have died in three wars since 1980. Up to half a million or maybe more during the Iran-Iraq war alone. Now a lot of those people would never have been identified, and they may very well, according to military people, be buried in graves just like this. But there has also been a parade of Kurds coming to look for their missing relatives. There was a busload earlier of a woman who said she lost both her husband and her son in the 1980s due to the</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: That was Jane Arraf from Kirkuk. Despite what she reported, people around Iraq continue to hold out hope that their loved ones will be found alive. Our Michael Holmes reports.</s>MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So many went missing, simply vanished under the rule of Saddam Hussein. No one knows for sure just how many. We've seen in Baghdad this past week heart wrenching searches through ministries and prisons, looking for clues, any sign of what became of loved ones. This family tells just one story in hundreds, thousands, about the perseverance of hope here, quite extraordinary. Saeed Rahim (ph) is one of the respected Shia elders of the local mosque. A mosque in one of the sprawling slum neighborhoods of Saddam City. Many people disappeared or were arrested here during the tenure of Saddam Hussein. Shia Muslims comprise 60 percent of Iraq's population, but were suppressed with an iron fist by the ruling Sunni Muslims. It was 1991, they say, when police came and took Saeed Rahim's (ph) nephews, 16-year-old boys, Rahim Ali Mahta (ph) and his cousin, Kadim Hashin (ph), for studying the Shia religion too often, was the charge, and with too much fervor. Days later, Rahim Ali's (ph) father went looking for his son and nephew.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He went out in the morning and he never came back. From 1981 till now, years later we are still looking for them everywhere.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I told my husband to stop looking for the boys in order to protect him. But he left and never came back to us.</s>HOLMES: Today, faded photos are all they have of the boys and Saeed Ali, who went looking for them. Photos and hope that, even after all this time, they will get some good news.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We go to national security headquarters to look and they chase us away. We're asking the Americans to look for them and return these sons to their families and complete our happiness.</s>HOLMES: The Americans, however, are still busy skirmishing, so individual cases rarely find an ear.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We are still looking for them in every jail. We hear of underground jails and we don't know where these jails are. And we don't know until they are dead or alive.</s>HOLMES: But life goes on as it has since that time in 1981. The big change being that now, for the first time, Saeed Rahim (ph) can openly make the call to prayer and conduct religious services the Shia way. Under Saddam Hussein, the Shia version of the Muslim faith was forced underground. Their dream remains in their hearts that their family will be reunited through some miracle.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): If they came back to the door after 25 years, I will die from happiness. My god, bring happiness to anyone who would bring us happiness. I'm asking for god's blessing.</s>HOLMES: But they have a nightmare, too, that with no proof of Saddam Hussein's death, just maybe, one day, he will come back. Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.