Episode 9: Patient #8
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For years, while reporting on the hideth, the killings, I thought what everyone else thought, that there were twenty four civilians killed by marines on november nineteen eighteenth, two thousand five, twenty four victims that was been reported in basically every news story about hideth, a allegations that U. S. Marines .

murdered .

four.

five lion depth of twenty four of twenty four iraqi citizens in the city of the deepo. It's a number the military .

gave in press conferences, twenty four man.

the number that members of congress used when they talked about the killings and children, twenty four people like kill now, now, this is a kind of stuff. But as we got deeper and deeper into our reporting, we began to wonder if maybe that number was wrong.

This is the final episode of season three of in the dark payment number eight.

One day, our producer, samara, was reading through the thousands of pages of documents that we'd received by suing the military. And you came across something that got her attention. So why I called .

to tell me about IT.

Hey, american. Hi, sir.

A so I was calling you. I found something that can interesting.

Sama had found a reference to something else that happened in a deepa on the same day that that twenty four people were killed, something else the marines had done, that hadn't resulted in any charges, and that none of us had ever heard of the reference sara had found came in one of the statements Lance corporal. Justin share IT had given to N. C.

I. S. Agents during the hideth investigation. Most of shared statement was about things we already knew about, but there were a few lines about this other thing.

the exact time that this happening is little unclear, but is maybe an hour so after the ID has exploded.

And so this would be after they went into some the rains, went into some of the houses that killed some people. yes. Share to describe for investigators how after the marines went into the first two houses, there was a pause in the shooting. Sherton wooders were outside looking around when sherrer said they spotted a man on the road a few hundred meters away, and wooder rich just opened fire. Smart read to me from share IT statement.

Wood, ich took his first shot but missed. I went to fire because witter ch had fired, but my weapon failed to fire and jammed. Witter ich took a second shot and hit the individual, and I saw him fall. I did not see a weapon and no one had shot at us.

Why did they shoot him? Why did share IT say they shot him?

Shared does not give a good explanation. He basically says, like guitar, I started shooting. So I started shooting.

sharrett said he never asked wood rich why he shot at the man. And as far as amErica tell from the records we had, shit never mentioned the shooting to investigators again. Wooder rich never talked to investigators about IT at all.

Sara was back to the documents, looking for any other references to this shooting, trying to figure out what had happened. And as he read, he realized this man who was shot apparently survived. Smart found documents that described other marines finding him later that day in a nearby house.

But as some are a captain, SHE realised that this shooting was only the beginning of the story, because IT turned out that the man wants and share. IT shot at wasn't alone that day. He advent with several other men at the time, and he was what happened to one of those men that really got her attention.

Most of the information samara was finding came in a series of interviews N. C, I, S. Investigators have conducted with a different squad of marines, a group of marines who weren't involved in the killings in the houses.

This group was called second squad. Second squad had been posted a little ways away from where share and woodard should ban. And the marines of second squad pick up the story from where share IT left off. They described hearing the gunfire coming from moody's and share its position, and spotting two men running.

running through the area, fleeing woods. And share IT IT .

appeared that what had happened was that after wooder IT shot the first man, the men who were with him started running away, and they ran right into the path of second squad. Some of the marines of second squad spotted these two men running, according to their statements to N. C.

I. S. They thought IT looks suspicious. Two men running and being shot at by marines. They felt the men were insurgents. And so members of second squad opened fire two and hit one of the men in the head. The man had been shot in the head fell to the ground.

As the .

marines watched, an iraqi family came outside and picked up the man. They brought him inside their house. A little while later, someone approach the marines waving a White flag and let the marines to the house. The marines of second squad were inside and found the man that they had shot in the head. He was alive, but badly injured.

They get inside and they find the sarraj I man, the man who's been shot in the head. The family of the houses tried to help this guy, like they've tied to tell around his head .

the marine bandage, the man's head wounds. They took photos of him, and then they radioed for a metaphor.

and they put him on a door that they are using as a stretch, and they bring him to a metaphoric site to wait for a metaphor.

Then the marines loaded the man onto a black hot helicopter and flew away.

Who was this man who'd been shot in the head? What happened to him had he survived? The marines statements didn't say, and the mountain name wasn't in any of the documents smirre had read.

We thought maybe the marines in second squad, the squad of shadow, could help fill in the blanks. And so we talked to as many of them as we could. Some of them told us they couldn't remember anything about the shooting. Others were particularly unhappy to see us, like when I producer rayman, stopped by the home of one of the marines.

did not go well.

The man threatened to call the police, and he appeared to take a photo of roman's license plate and said he would be blasting a photo of raman to his marine core groups to make sure that no one talk to him ever again. A producer, nataly, went to see the leader of second squad. A man inferences a wolf with. He told investigators he chatted the man because he thought they were. Insurgents imposed a threat when not really knock in his door, wolf opened up, and before that we could say anything.

You don't come back.

These marines were definitely not interested in helping us. They just sent their dog after me. Really, the dog doesn't seem to be to me.

But then one day, a clue IT came in the batch of photos the military has sent us after we suit them. Most of those photos were of the twenty four known victims of the deef, the killings. But there were a few other photos of someone else entirely.

They show a man lying on his back on a bright red carpet. The man is wearing White pants and a bed to ash. His head is bloody.

Someone had placed a White towel underneath IT. His head injury looks serious, but IT appeared. The man in these photos might still have been alive.

There were two other photos of the man, both of them close up, shots taken of the man's tattoos. One of the tattoos was on his left hand. A small black circle was some kind of mark in the middle. The other tattoos was on the man's ARM, a small but unmistakable letter in black ink, the letter M.

Okay, so I am scanning through some of these records we get from N T. I S.

One afternoon, sir, I was reading through another batch of records, recording yourselves as we often do.

and just going through all of these hundreds of pages and pulling out anything I could find on this guy who was shut in a death november nineteenth.

And deep in the investigative file, SHE found something.

oh, where, second.

a pair of documents describing the man shot by marines and air lifted out of haditha.

Hold on, on a.

and these documents alone, out of all the reports we had received contained there is a name in here, a name .

monday, and need hamid monday .

amid hammad. Will be back after the break.

Hey, it's metal in if you're a fan of in the dark and you love long form story telling and you have listen to all the serialized investigative podcast and you've already watched everything good on netflix, there is a wealth of stories you're going to love waiting for you at the new yorker like this story publish. Just this year, the patch grain kef about a teen who got mixed up in the london underworld and then mysteriously fell into the terms.

In the four years since x death, the family has had to confront the extent to which the boy they thought they knew have been living a double existence. None of the bread lers i'd ever imagined that zac might be moving about london, pretending to be someone else altogether. This season of in the dark took us four years to report.

You're hearing IT now because the yorker beliefs and what we do. So go to new yorker dot com slash dark and become a subscriber today. That's new yorker dot com flash stack.

This mysterious other shooting of a man with a tattoo of a letter m, this man whose name according to those documents was mana hamet, made some matter think back to a story we'd heard more than a year earlier. Back when we are in our bill, we're with our interpreter talking to color some on receive the lawyer who had lost fifteen members of his family that day. I had a lot of information to share about his family, what they were like, what he saw that day, everything you've done to try to get the killings of the twenty four people investigated in the middle of all, this collared briefly mentioned that there was a woman in hideth a who come to .

him for help. Shortly after the killings .

he ran into, who told him about her missing son. On the same day of the incident, the woman told color had gone out that morning and never came home, and SHE hadn't seen him since. He asked, collared for help. Figuring out what had happened to him and collared, tried, he told us. He asked the marines about the woman son multiple times is good.

How is he is higher? T all the time when he was meeting with americans, he was asking about him, and they all the time told him that we don't know this person and we don't know what happened to him. We know, I think about him.

College said that for years this mother would come to him asking about her son.

and he was very shy from her because he didn't have any information about the sun. Nobody knows anything about him.

college said he felt ashamed that he was never able to give the mother any answers. Colour told us the story almost doesn't a side. We moved on to other things.

But now summer, I wondered, could there be a connection between this missing man and that mysterious other shooting? The man named something like Manda hammed begonia talked to collide. He didn't remember the missing man's name, so samara texted coloured and asked him if he could track IT down and right away. Collared sent samara a voice memo.

That is your .

mom do hammed. The document had said, mona hammer, not exactly the same, but close.

We asked color if .

you could connect us with mom, do his family and he agreed.

I'm do .

his mother, who'd asked call .

IT for help all those years ago, died in twenty thirteen. But mom, dose brothers are .

still alive. So yes.

and my kosh now the BBC reporter we are working with to go with an interpreter .

to meet them. So thanks very much for coming. Could you please introduce .

yourselves.

your name, the brother's names? Are they all made .

at college house? And the brothers told the mark more about mom do. And what happened that day.

back in two thousand five, mom do .

was twenty seven years old. He was charming, outgoing. His brother described .

him as a kind of guy you've got along with everyone. He was very friendly, used to have jokes with others, where he mix with people, establish coq relationship and the friendship with others.

A cousin leader, send us a picture of mom, do he's looking right at the camera, grinning a huge grand. A person next to him is giving a bunny ears.

lovely. A worker, I can walk.

The family lived in header and neighbors od a little ways away from our college family lived before the war. Mom doing his brothers worked in construction, but when the americans arrived, that kind of work dried up. And so the brothers started doing all kinds of odd jobs.

just trying to scrape living together A A S whole. On the morning of november .

sixteen, teeth, two thousand and five, the brothers had a job to do, a guy who ran Operation selling gas around to etha. One of them to walk to a nearby town to pick up one of his trucks.

B, A, G. Had ask him to take the truck, go to begin to bring gas.

Mom, do. And his brother doma set off on foot with two of their cousins tighter. And you seen the men didn't know that anything out of the ordinary had happened that morning.

They've been too far away to hear the I. E. D. Explode, and too far away to here .

any of the shooting that followed. They know there was an incident.

The men walk through the town out of their neighbourhood and into colour. Some on receives the streets required. Then out of .

nowhere and starting shooting.

there were marines on the street a few hundred metres away firing at them. What mode's brothers were describing appear to be the moment that lands corporal Justin Sherry described in his statement to investigators the moment he said woody rich open fire on a man and so he tried to shoot two shit had given investigators a clear reason why they were shooting at the man.

And the men told the mark they had no idea why the marines were shooting at them. They said they weren't Carrying weapons or anything that could have been mistaken for a weapon. They're just walking through town.

The marines didn't call out any warning. They just started shooting. The men ran trying to escape. The one of the marines bullets hit is seen in the stomach and ripped through his back. The scene fell face first to the ground.

Do stopped ready? You checked .

on your scene. Are you okay? Are you alive? He seems that go run.

A neighbor pulled the scene into a nearby house. He was eventually taken to a hospital, and he survived. Mom, do juma and hyder kept running. Unbeknown to them, they were running right into another squad of marines, second squad.

and then shot. In his ad.

mom do was hit too.

Neighbours got mum do into a house. His cousin hider went into the house with him. Hyder later told his family what happened inside, how I do, despite his head wound, was still conscious as he lay on the floor of the house, how he was praying and asking hider to take care of the family. Hider told the family how a group of marines enter the house and Carried mom do .

out to an american helicopter, modus brother juma watch.

from a distance as a .

helicopter lifted off and they left.

And that was the last anyone in huda ever saw of mom deu hammad.

In the days and weeks and months, eventually years that followed, the families searched for mom due. They had no idea what had happened to him. They didn't know if he was alive or dead. You've been treated by the americans, or if he been arrested and .

was now in prison. We keep worrying and keep asking every day night. Where's when do? Where is do is used to alive?

The family tried everything to find them and do his brothers, ja and cosm would go with their mother to the american base over and over again, begging for any information, good or bad, about what had happened to their brother. The marines didn't offer them any answers. At one point.

someone at the base told them, 发 起来 了， 可以。 He was handed to the arc forces.

Baby, mom, do had been handed over to iraqi forces, and so the family found a relative who had access to the computer database that contained records of the people. The iraq kies were holding the may and a search for mom do.

checking all the computers for iraqi forces, other iraqi security forces.

But the search came up empty. The family kept trying drema and custom traveled with her mother to .

prisons all over checking the sea .

if mom do was being held in any of .

them looking.

but he wasn't, cosm said. Their mother refused to stop, hoping the mom do might still be out there somewhere and that one day they might find them.

SHE didn't stop looking for him. He knocked over doors, mr. Harry. But dad, american iarc forces, SHE didn't give up because you get here come.

And SHE wouldn't allow junior and cosm to stop looking either. Human and custom never gave up hope they might one day find mom do, but after their mother died, they did stop searching. They told the mark that they wanted to end this anguished of not knowing if mom dee was dead.

They wanted to know, maybe even find his body and bring him home for a proper burial. And of course, if their brother was still out there somewhere alive, they wanted to find them. But IT event so long, almost twenty years, they tried everything, look everywhere, talk to everyone. But they're never been able to find mom due. And so we decided to try.

The last time anyone in the family had seen mom dee, he was being put on to A U. S. Military helicopter after being shot.

My marines in the, but he was still alive at that point, even still talking according to his family. We actually managed to find a marine who was on that black helicopter that day. His name is pedro Garcia.

He's been wounded that day in a different engagement in another part of town. Garcia remembers being told by someone that the iraqi man being loaded onto the black cock with him was responsible for the I. E. D, the killed lands. Corporal magter sis.

I look over and my, who the hell this? And one of the gas from first between you're like excused by language, but they were like as a piece of, should have put that, pull the trigger on the I D. And i'm like, why? why? Why is here what by and I member I bucking you piece of .

shit mum dou, of course, was not the trigger man, but Garcia didn't know that on board the trapper mom dew was hooked up to oxygen.

good.

Someone asked her, see a if you would freeze the oxygen bag to help mom do breathe .

and I remember I was a cruise. He told me, goes, hey, I need you to blow the little masking with a little ball to the squeakin IT pumps, air pump, air hand to keep the circulation. He wanted me to do that to him, to dire guy. And I I little IT might have been called, but when they tell me who who that person was, and in knowing that when my bodies is killed, I use my language, but go fuck yourself, bucking, let them die.

Mondeo didn't die. Another marine ended up squeeze the oxygen bag and model was still alive when the black cock landed near the hospital at alasia d airbase. Samara found records of interviews that N C I S. Investigators did with medical personnel who worked at the hospital on the base, and they tell what happened after mom do arrived.

He's phoned to the hospital at the american based alasia d. And when he arrives at Alice sade, he's he's a pretty bad shape, but he is still alive and Alice de doesn't have a name for him and they have no no identifying information at all. So the front deck clerk innes him into the patient log as enemy prisoner of war patient .

number eight at the hospital. At Alice sad medical staff intimated mom deu, who they called patient number eight, then they loaded him on to another helicopter bound for a hospital in baghdad run by the american military. We have a statement that a marine who is on that flight to bag dad gave to investigators this marine job was to guard mom do on the helicopter ride.

He was accompanied by a nurse. The marine told investigators that the chopper landed in baghdad on a helipad near the hospital. The marine then loaded mom do into a six wheel A, T.

V, and drove to the hospital. They went inside. IT was full of military personnel.

A second with tenant told the marine he'd have to fill out some paperwork about the patient he was guarding. The marine asked if he could use the bathroom first. When he returned, the secondary tanit told him, don't worry about the paperwork. The man who brought us is dead.

IT isn't clear exactly what happened in mom dues final moments or exactly when he died. IT seems that could have happened on the second helicopter ride, the one to bag dad. We requested modus full medical records from the U.

S. Military, but they refused to provide them. We do know that despite his head injury, mom do was considered stable when he left, alissa's headed to bag dad. The limited records we did manage to obtain say that he died, quote, as a result of a penetrating injury to the brain, the american military hospital in baghdad wrote out a test certificate. They didn't have any identifying information.

So on his death certificate, he's just listed as an uni dense fied jundee.

The hospital in bedad held on dues body for five days, not knowing who this person was and therefore having no way to contact the family. On november twenty fourth two thousand five, they released his uni dense fied remains to the back, dad mork.

Sama, I wanted to find out if the Morgan bag dad might know what happened to mom do his body. So we hired a research based on bad dad to help us.

Hello.

hi. Can you hear me?

yes. Hello, hi.

hi. I'm trying to reach yes.

I am the researcher .

didn't want us to use his real name .

because like honestly, IT is not safe for me honestly to show for public that i'm working with american that will like make some terrible for .

is there a name that I could use that would be safe for you? Just to give me something to call you.

you can just say me a okay that we would be fine.

Mana was familiar with a bag dad mork. Its official name is the medical legal institute. Mana told sara. Then, unfortunately, everyone who lived in baghdad during the war was familiar with the medical legal institute because IT seemed like everyone had known someone whose .

body ended up there, especially like bag residents. They do have like that experience about this, uh, institute because myself, my friends have lost their relatives, their friends in this institute when I had actually .

gone to the institute himself sometime back in two thousand seven or two thousand eight, to help a friend search for a missing family member. They've sorted through mounds of bodies piled on the floor, but the body they were looking for wasn't there.

You can like snow death in every cordiner, in every corridor of this institute.

Mani agreed to go back to the medical legal institute and see what he could find out about what had happened to mom duse body. Two weeks later, sara got back on a call with him.

What was IT like to go back there?

Oh, I got like a flashes from what happened from these memories. Like, you know, all the images, like, even the smells IT was, like, really shocking me.

Mana told sara what he had learned during his trip to the institute. He said. The staff there told him what I was like back in the mid two thousands.

At the time mum do was killed. The country of a rock back then was in chaos, triggered by the american invasion. Civil society had collapsed.

There is basically no functioning anything. There are insurgents and worrying militia groups. The city of baghdad was filled with the sound of constant blast from car bomb shootings, explosions. Hundreds of people were dying each day. And the medical legal institute was a place where the bodies of many of these people ended up.

The situation was like, really bad at the time because they didn't have like enough space in the refrigerated to keep all of the bodies. So when I was flow, they just stack the bodies outside or in the sidewalk or everywhere. IT was really added stuff of.

The more couldn't keep up with all the death. They couldn't process all the bodies in any kind of coherent way. They couldn't store them.

And almost none of the bodies that were arriving at the morg came with any identifying information. But the staff of the institute told mana that there was one thing. The workers at the morg back then were able to do in the midst of all this chaos, something that now seems pretty remarkable. The workers at the mark look to head to a time when things might be less violent, less chaotic, a time when people might be Better able to come looking for information about their dead loved ones. And so the workers at the morg took photographs of all of these bodies .

victus for the bodies, like for everyone who was the driver to this institute. They have photos for for everyone.

photos of everyone labeled with the date that the body had arrived after the mark, workers with photograph and unclaimed and identified body, the mark would coordinate with cemeteries to arranged to have the body picked up and buried in one of them. The more cup track of all of this, even now they had records of where each body had gone. According to the U.

S. Military records, sama had reviewed the body of mom. Do hamad had been turned over by the americans to the morning on november twenty forth, two thousand five.

Do they have photos from november twenty fourth, two thousand five?

Yes, yes, yes. yes.

Wow, yeah.

yeah. So basically, like according to this, we might find the body of the man that we are looking for.

The mark told me up, they couldn't show him the pictures, but they said that if a family member wanted, they could come to the mourn and look at the photo and see if mom do was in them. And if he was, the more would consult its records and be able to tell the family where mom dose body was buried. Will be back after the break.

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Sama wanted to tell modus family everything she'd learned, but he wanted someone to be there with them, helping to convey this information, so SHE asma to meet with mom duse family in person.

Met mode's brothers com and dream a college .

on receives house. They all set down together .

on a couch in color living room. They poured some tea. I am not called smart in my phone.

Hi sara. I'm with mr. r. Carly then. I seem in german.

It's very nice to meet you. And thank you for talking to me.

Thank you tomorrow. great.

I wondered to begin by telling you how sorry I am about what happened to your family and to mom. Do be there.

I have a bottle. And s if you should, out as I have, I has little to do.

For the past several years, me and my team have been working on an investigation into what happened in a deepa on november nineteen sixth of two thousand five, when many civilians were killed by american marines.

Her mother og a at her party, but damage, we have our own bill model and the heads to buy asiana cancer mother got to the paddies. Yes.

while doing that reporting, we obtained some documents that I believe her about your brother, mom do. And what happened to him that day?

Hello, hi tucky card here has said about the without a lemon can in, in, in, nationally. Has that on then who one of him can be on dash? yes.

Would you like me to share with you what i've learned .

from those documents? Fortunately, the only wish that I, they have they want to know like eagerly what happened to there brother.

okay. Um so the records that I have show that mom do, as you know, was shot by marines on the morning of november .

nineteen sixth and dea I I for I just really out no told .

juma and cam how m do was flown out of .

his death a he was met event .

to alasia d airbase.

How he was taken to Alice sad and treated there.

He was treated at Alice sad .

for about an hour and put on .

another helicopter.

thi the less and sent .

on to the american military hospital in baghdad. But before he could be treated at that hospital.

mom do died from the gunshot wound to his head.

iata. Why he about the. 干活。

I am so sorry to be the one telling you this news. I I know this is probably not the news that you wanted to receive, but I felt that was really important that you know this.

Yeah, anymore. How well they said you had ash no, this is his fate and we are really, really appreciate you, uh, telling us what happened to him and now we can relieve at least finally, uh, knowing what happened to our brother .

color salon received was in this meeting. And at this .

moment he began to speak good and himself.

Ever since the day of the killings, collared had felt a burden, a burden of being responsible for twenty four people. IT is shaped his entire adult life. And now sitting there in this meeting, color was realizing there is actually one more victim to add.

His burden had grown even heavier. There are now twenty five victims of the hideth, the killings, twenty five people killed by U. S. Marines that day.

See, my family was grateful .

to samara, but also angry. Why did IT taken so long for anyone to tell them that .

their brother was dead and study? Well, IT was clear from the document.

Smart was sharing with them that the U. S. Military had known for nearly twenty years that mom do was dead.

And so that whole time that the family had been asking the marines travelling to bases and prisons across iraq, pleading with anyone in everyone for information, the truth was, in the possession of the U. S. Military all along is like.

if only they told us like that he is.

Did only killed him. They killed him twice. One when they killed him, like in reality, and second, when they didn't tell about what we .

ask the U. S. Marine corp. Why they didn't tell mom dose family the truth years ago. They didn't answer when we asked major day to hide the former civil affairs officer in hideth a about mom. Do he told us he couldn't remember anyone who fit that description in that meeting with mom duse family. There was one more thing .

to talk about. They asking about the sima explained that .

mani had gone to the medical legal institute in baghdad and talk to people who work there and learned that there might be records of mom do there.

They have pictures of bodies that were turned over by the americans on that day, november twenty fourth.

with family .

members. If they want to, can go to the mark, to the medical legal institute and look at the pictures and try to .

identify their loved ones. And they eagerly want to know what happened and to, uh, get the cops, or at least where they buried his biting.

On a cool, dry morning in january, modus brothers jua woke up early and started off on the long drive from her deaths to bag dad. The conversation he'd had with samara had provided some relief, but in the days after that conversation, juma started to doubt and IT bends so many years, years and years of conflicting information, years of being told one thing and then told another thing and never being able to know anything.

For sure, juma still wasn't convinced his brother was dead. In baghdad, dream met up with mana, and they added to the medical legal institute on the driver over. Drema told me how he was feeling anxious.

His emotions were all mixed up. He said he wanted the relief that he thought would come from knowing for sure what had happened to mom do. But jama said, he's my brother and sometimes I don't know.

I would rather live with the hope that he's still alive and maybe one day who walk back in the door of our family's home. When ja ema arrived at the medical legal institute, they were LED through the busy hours to a sexual of the morg called the office of missing persons. They were shown to a room, the large screen mounted on the wall.

Jim a couldn't said he was too nervous.

And so we stood gazing at the screen as an employee started up a computer and a slideshow, again, one picture after another of dead, a rocky men delivered to the morning in the month of november two thousand. Five, and never identified so many dead men.

Men dead of gunshot wounds, men with their bodies blown apart, each one with their own family, their own story, an entire life, reduce to a photograph of their remains being flashed up on the screen and replaced by another. They cut, flipping through photos. Old people, Young people, middle age people, so many bodies. But one estimate the war in iraq left around three hundred thousand iraqis dead. One photo flashed up onto the screen, then another, then another.

until jama called .

out that one, that one. And there was mom due. You can see the gun shut to his head, but his face was clean. And you can see this features clearly. There was a yellow piece of paper on his chest with a handwritten note saying the body had been delivered by the american military. Mom do, after all these years had been found. Modus family is now working to have his body extreme from the cemetery he was buried as an uni dense fied man, so they can finally bring him home to his teeth.

On an afternoon and early spring called some on receive, the man who lost fifteen members of his family walk down a crowded street in hd a with nmc, the BBC reporter we are working with in iraq. They opened a small metal gate that LED into a court guard.

The ground was hand in dusty, and in the dirt you could see circles of carefully placed stones. These are the graves of collapse family members killed on november eighteen th, two thousand. five.

There are larger circles of stones. And next to them, several smaller circles parents bury next to their children. Color salon stood in the graveyard on the crowded street .

and began to cry. special. And a loan there .

was the grave of college sister asma, asma, who died with her arms around her four year old son, adella, in the corner of their living room. Adella would now be twenty three years old, maybe a university student, maybe considering a family of his zone. Instead, he was lying dead in a grave next to his mother and father.

There was the grave of units and his wife, ida, the mother who died on a bed surrounded by her children. The children's graves were there, too. Her eight year old son, muhammed, ten year old, sub fifteen year old nor, and the Youngest children, five year old za and three year old, isha hundred .

of each .

family, a whole world gone in just seconds, called someone receive, stood there among .

the graves.

He said they had dreams, ambitions, families.

I can help.

The wind moved to the palettes, the culture prayer rose up over the city, the traffic rush past. There were people, he said.

In the dark is reported and produced by me at and barren managing producer samara remark, producers nato lege blan ski and rayman tongue car and reporter Parker esco. In the dark is edited by Katherine winter and willing, David's son interpreting in iraq by I am mitha na, additional reporting and investigating in iraq by BBC arabic s in a map kochno field producer hyder alchemical and mana.

Additional interpreting and translation by iah elsa archi. Additional translation by cherian colard and Lucy chronic this episode was fact checked by sharan color and is my ill ibrahim original music by alison latin Brown, additional music by Crystal an and gary master sound design and mixed by john law. Our theme is by gary master, our art is by a millionaire anzy art direction by Nicholas conrad and a viva Michael love research helps in london by similar shackle for your legal representation from the foia team at lovie and love legal review by fab o bertoni in the dark was created by american public media and is produced by the new yorker.

This season was supported by the bullets or center. Our managing editor is Julia rough child. The editor of new yorker dotcom is Michelle o.

The digital director is Monica assist. The head of global audio for Candy nest is Chris fanning. The editor of the new worker is David romney.

A big thank you to our four year legal team for their many long hours and commitment to this work. They're seriously the back. Thank you to the entire team. That topic josh love, Stephen stitch, match marque Rachel black bunting, Megan sinker and Becky share talk and thanks to bon pam holland at spotlight productions, a alc archi I for her tireless work on this series, alex top of Crystal and lawyers for reporters and Kevin primary for his assistance with the forensic analysis for this series.

A special thanks to our former colleagues, apm reports, who contributed to or supported the early work on this series, dave man, andy cruise, willis raft, jeff king, tom shack, curtain sculpt, social a islands, an Shelly length d laun haunched d enter Chris worthington, who's believed in and supported our journalism since the early days and cares about the people behind the work two and a big thank you to sam Wilson and David got for the 3d visualization work for a new yorker dot com and to nath's version kd cleveland， lord deri medicine, houston n. Witney homes, Linda ad hymir, then Richardson, Nicole el and iron river for all their work to help the show find its audience. And especially thank you to Chris fan in and David remnick bringing in the dark to the new york ker to send us your thoughts on this series or to give us ideas for what we should investigate next. You can send us an email at in the dark at new yorker dot com and make sure to state subscribed in the dark wherever you get your podcast so you won't miss what we do next. For more on this series, including photos, our database and much more, go to new york er 点 com flash season three。

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