Mass burial of nameless victims

Dozens of victims of summary executions were buried yesterday in a mass burial ground on the outskirts of Zamboanga City, as police continue to search for clues on the identities of the killers and the corpses.

At least 49 bodies that turned up in scattered areas in Zamboanga City in the past two years were stuffed inside wooden crates and buried in the village of Mercedez after a brief religious ceremony by a Muslim priest.

Most of the victims, believed to be Muslims, were either shot in the head or stabbed several times in the body –their faces sometimes covered with plastic and hands tied behind their backs–by still unidentified killers. "We paid over a hundred thousand pesos to the funeral house for everything, from the embalming and the wooden crates and other funeral services," the City Administrator Antonio Orendain told reporters.