34 Coffins Find there Way Home

In the Iraqi Shia holy city of Karbala, funerals are held for 34 men whose skeletal remains were found at a factory near the Syrian border three years after they vanished.

Relatives and friends carry the coffins of 34 abducted men killed nearly three years ago, on 23 October 2008; during their funeral in the streets of al-Bena al-Jahiz neighborhood in Karbala, 120kms South of Baghdad.

The skeletal remains of 34 men killed nearly three years ago were found at an Iraqi factory near the Syrian border and brought to the Shia holy city of Karbala yesterday, an official said.

The men who were from Karbala disappeared in 2005 after they left the city with a man posing as an Iraqi army officer to join the security forces in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, an official with the local office of the movement of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said.

He said the remains of the men were found three days ago buried at the factory in the town of Al-Qaim near the Syrian border.