Coffin Industry Booming in Iraq

BAGHDAD, May 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Against a backdrop of almost daily bombings, shuddering explosions and US raids that claim the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians, the demand for coffins is so high and undertakers are burying bodies at a huge profit.

"The spiraling death rate in the country has definitely reflected positively on undertakers," Mohammad Sakran, who owns a tomb in east Baghdad, told the London-based Al-Quds Press news agency. "The tomb is running out of space," he added, recalling that many of the Shiite casualties who were killed in deadly clashes between US occupation forces and militias of Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr had been buried in his tomb.

In the past, it was just a funeral here and there. But now dozens of Iraqis are laid to rest day in and day out with tombs bursting at the seams, said the news agency. Burial grounds have not only mushroomed in recent months across the country, but have become the size of such cities as An-Najaf as every family has lost at least one to an indiscriminate car bomb, US bullets or assassinations. In other cities, bodies remain uncollected in morgues.

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