Rana Sidani in Basra
They now call her “the burier”. For Inass Mouaiid, a 25-year-old Iraqi Red Crescent volunteer, burying 50 bodies was difficult. But she also had the courage to carry injured people to hospitals while under fire.
Only now, when the military operation in Iraq is over, is she afraid.
She is afraid of being kidnapped. The streets in her neighbourhood, which she knows by heart, have a new dark face in these days. There are persistent rumours that gangs are kidnapping women, raping and killing them.
To protect themselves, some girls are carrying knifes, while others do not venture outdoors without the protection of a male relative. Going out into the streets alone nowadays is a risky decision. With the new security realities, it has become dangerous for a young woman in Iraq to leave her home, even to go to school. Day by day, it grows more difficult for women to have a role in public life.
It was not like this before or during the war. The main problem female Iraq Red Crescent volunteers faced then was to convince their traditional society that they could have an active role in rescue efforts during military operations.
"My family, neighbours, even people in the streets told me that battlefields are not intended for women" she explained. "This attitude motivated me even more to prove that women have a helping role in wartime" she added.
Inass and her fellow volunteers now share many sad stories of their rescue operations. Basra University was the saddest. They were only three young volunteers - Inass, another woman, Israa, and Mohamed - using just an ambulance and a pick-up truck.
The University compound and the small lake next to it were scattered with the bodies of dead soldiers. Inass found two severed heads, buried in the mud next to the lake. Her two colleagues could not bear to retrieve these heads and put them in the pick-up with the other body parts, so Inass volunteered for the task.
"I tried to pull up one head by its hair, but I failed because it was too well stuck in the mud" she remembers in gruesome detail. Kneeling in this field of death, she hesitated for a moment, tempted to abandon this horrific effort.
"But then I began to think that this man had a family, and possibly children who are waiting to hear any news about him. This gave me the courage to try again,” Inass said.
"I grabbed it by one ear and put my other hand into the mud under the skull to lift it out carefully.” She had to do this slowly to protect what remained of the face's features "to be able to take a photo of him and hopefully to identify him" she noted. She used the same technique to recover the second head.
Inass says she will never forget the second disembodied head. Its eyes were staring at her plaintively, as if pleading: "please bury me". It made her feel sick, but she still had much to do.
The small lake beside Basra University had many bodies floating in it. They had begun decomposing after spending several days in the water after the fighting had stopped. Inass and Israa could not swim, so Mohamed had to plunge into the fetid water. He tied a rope to the first body, fearing that it would fall apart when it was pulled to the bank.
The two girls held the other end of the rope. Once Mohamed had finished tying the body, they pulled it slowly towards them. They then used their Red Crescent stretcher to carefully carry the first decomposed corpse to their pick-up. The process took hours, slowly carrying the stretcher from the lake to the truck.
This is how three Red Crescent volunteers spent one day after the war. They stopped only when there was no space left in the pickup.
Not all Red Crescent work is so horrific. Inass is now involved in psychological support activities at a children's summer camp. Dealing with children, she says gives her the energy and motivation to continue her voluntary work.
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