Lebanese war victims buried in mass grave

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

TYRE, Lebanon - The coffins were turned in the direction of Mecca, the Muslim holy city, and a Shiite cleric recited the prayer for the dead before the 31 plywood caskets were lowered Saturday into a new mass grave

The smallest of the crude coffins belonged to 1-day-old Sawsan Tajeldin. She died in her mother's arms when an Israeli missile smashed into their white-flagged car five days ago. They were fleeing their home in Bazouriya for Tyre, just three miles distant

Sawsan's body, along with that of her mother, was trapped in the car for two days before ambulance workers were prepared to risk the road to retrieve them, said Abdul Shadi, a volunteer civil defense worker in Tyre.

At the grave site, Sawsan's tiny body, wrapped in a black plastic sheet, was taken from the back of a refrigerated truck where it had been kept along with 30 other victims until Saturday's mass burial.

The overpowering smell of decaying bodies hung in the air. Volunteers and Lebanese military men wore rubber gloves and surgical masks as they lifted each body from the truck and placed them in the marked coffins.

At the grave site, the cleric Sheik Akil Zain from Bint Jbail led prayers. Four of his relatives were among the dead.

"Today my heart is crying, not just for them but for all those who are talking but doing nothing, the United Nations. I cry for them. This is not humanity this war."