Mosul's morgue men endured worst of Islamic State butchery
The young man ended up on the morgue's examining table in two parts. He had been seized for selling cigarettes, a crime usually punished by flogging by the Islamic State group extremists who had occupied Mosul. But while he was being whipped, he shouted a curse insulting religion. On the spot, they cut off his head for blasphemy. Sameh al-Azzawi, the 35-year-old medical assistant examining him, was sick of seeing Mosul's youth butchered for the slightest reason. The man was a newlywed. His family was waiting outside; it was one of the occasional times when the fanatics allowed the return of someone killed by the group. So al-Azzawi violated the rules: He picked out some thick thread and quickly sewed the man's head back on, then zipped him up in the body bag. He could sew a head back on a...
