The respected cameraman and producer Michael Burke co-operated with Dr Salam Ismael to produce powerful material that was due to be shown on Channel 4 News this week. It included film taken of mass burials near Saqlawiya, on the outskirts of Fallujah. The bodies that were interred there were collected mainly from the Jolan district in the city. Socialist Worker’s Simon Assaf saw the unedited footage and describes its graphic content.
Dr Salam Ismael, now 28 years old, was head of junior doctors in Baghdad before the invasion of Iraq. He was in Fallujah in April 2004 where he treated casualties of the assault on the city.