Searching for missing loved ones in Gaza’s mass graves
By Fergal Keane
A mother will search anywhere for her missing child. And while she has the strength, she will never stop.
Whether he is alive or dead. It doesn’t matter.
For four days Kareema Elras has moved through the noise, dust and overpowering stench of the mass graves at Nasser hospital.
She is the mother of 21-year-old Ahmed, who was killed on 25 January in the city of Khan Younis, in south central Gaza. His body has been missing since then.
On Tuesday, Kareema found her boy.
“I have been coming here all the time until now,” she said, “until I found the body of my son, my son Ahmed, the cherished little boy, his mother’s love. He lost his father when he was 12 years old, and I raised him.”
Nearby, other families walk along the perimeter of the graves.
It is a scene depressingly familiar from war zones around the world.
