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1631-HQ-1462938 by wd O Al-Mahawil mass grave site. [HRW interview with, [| Mahawi, May 14, 2003] HRW was given a list that, according to local officials, contained more than 1,200 names of identified victims from the two Al-Mahawil mass graves. However, the list appears limited in its usefulness and reliability: the actual numbering of the victims was sloppy; the numbering jumps suddenly from victim 830 to victim 931; many victims take up more than one number; and some victims are listed multiple times. A closer examination of the list suggests that relatives have claimed slightly less than 1,000 of the victims from the mass grave. These identifications were made in a variety of ways and some are of dubious reliability. While some relatives were fortunate to find remains containing identity papers, in other cases family members guessed as to identity based on much more circumstantial criteria such as items of clothing, medications, and cigarettes found with the corpses. It is similarly difficult to estimate the total number of unidentified persons exhumed from the two Al-Mahawil mass graves as no records appear to have been kept. Local officials gave widely varying figures, but a HRW count of the unidentified bodies just before their reburial concluded that approximately 1,200 bodies remained at the large Al-Mahawil mass grave and just over 100 bodies remained at the Al-Mahawil brick factory mass grave. It appears, moreover, that some of the bodies from the brick factory mass grave were moved to the large Al-Mahawil mass grave site. Taken together, it appears that no more than approximately 2,300 bodies were recovered from the two Al-Mahawil mass graves. Although the list of claimed victims provided by local authorities is of limited reliability in terms of the total number of victims, it does provide some crucial information about the likely identity and residence of the victims. The vast majority of the victims appear to have been young men from the general area around Al-Hillah, indicating that the mass grave was a result of a localized campaign of arrests and executions in the Al-Hillah area. The relatively small number of victims from Karbala, Ad-Diwaniyah, An-Najaf, and Baghdad in the mass grave appear to have been traveling through the Al-Hillah area at the time of their detention and therefore, were probably not arrested elsewhere and transferred to the area. Among the victims are more than a dozen Egyptian nationals who were working and living in the Al-Hillah area. 85