3,600 Iraqis were disfigured under Saddam Hussein

Baghdad, Iraq Press, March 1st , 2004 – The ousted regime of Saddam Hussein had amputated the ears or tongues of at least 3,600 Iraqis, a human rights group reveals.

“The victims of amputation by the former regime are in the range of 3,600,” Yahya al-Attabi, head of the National Assembly for Human Rights, said.

Attabi said his group was trying to help the victims and the first plastic surgery operations would be carried out on a few of them at al-Kindi Hospital in Baghdad, where most of the amputations took place.

“Some 600 of these victims have already asked for help,” Attabi said.

The country’s interim authorities have issued regulations giving the victims the right to seek compensation.

Saddam Hussein resorted to horrendous physical penalties to keep his iron grip on power, particularly in the last 12 years of his long rule.

Army deserters got their ears chopped off and foreheads branded. The victims even had to pay the doctors administering the brutal punishment.

Tongues of dozens of Iraqis were cut out for loose talk and hands and ears of scores were amputated for petty offences.

The rights group would like most of the plastic surgery done at al-Kindi Hospital.

“Al-Kindi was the clinic where most of amputations involving the ears of victims were carried out,” according to Saadoun Naeem, a member of the group.

Naeem said many Iraqi doctors objected to perform the amputations and were punished severely as a result.

And those who took part in them are now under investigation.

However, Naeem said most of the amputations which took place at al-Kindi were done by an Egyptian doctor whom he refused to name.

Naeem said medical records show that 700 Iraqis were amputated in the southern city of Basra alone and 400 in Amara, also in the south.

Naeem said many of those who had their tongues chopped off died. “We have evidence that a few of them committed suicide and some simply disappeared without a trace,” he said.

Naeem said the society was striving to establish contact with all the victims but “many are now either suffering from major depression or have simply gone mad and lost any more interest in life.”