The discovery of 82 bodies in the area of Jurf al-Sakhar, southwestern Baghdad with some buried before being identified, drove on Wednesday a war of tweets and statements in Iraq, recalling the Shiite-Sunni divide that raged in the country between 2006 and 2007.
Statements and clarifications issued this week by the OHCHR and the Babel governorate concerning an investigation to search for the unidentified bodies and the way they were buried did not help ease the intensity of mutual accusations and statements exchanged between Sunni and Shiite figures in Iraq.
Several Shiite figures insist there is a need to handle this file with much realism and not give it sectarian dimensions, while other Sunni political figures seek to link this file with the so-called case of Sunni detainees who were captured by factions of Hashd al-Shaabi that fought ISIS in the provinces of Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin.
Nineveh Governor and former leader of the Iraqi Decision Coalition Atheel al-Nujaifi lashed out Wednesday on Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi, who earlier said that the unidentified bodies found in the province of Babylon, do not bear the character of sectarianism.
In a comment posted on his Twitter account, Nujaifi said, “ We cannot limit the fate of the victims in the statements issued by Speaker Halbousi and his supporters, who said that the case is not sectarian.”
Nujaifi uncovered the presence of official documents from the Babylon health directorate and the Hillah municipality revealing that a permit was issued to burry 31 unidentified bodies before being recognized by their relatives.
Also, Secretary-General of Asaib Ahl al-Haq Qais al-Khazali criticized some politicians who commented on the incident of "the bodies of Babylon province."
Khazali said in a tweet that "the statements of some politicians proved unfortunately that there is still a political generation who have not yet taken lessons from the destruction caused by the sectarian rhetoric on their people and Iraq in general.”
He described those people as "political adolescence, who try to ride the wave."
Last Tuesday, head of the "Anbar Is Our Identity" alliance, Abdullah Al-Kharbeet told Asharq Al-Awsat, “Since the government fails to deal with what is happening concerning the mass grave issue, it becomes natural that we ask that the file be handled by the international community.”
