Falluja turns out to bury dead after U.S. pullback

FALLUJA, Iraq, May 3 (Reuters) - Victory, which people in Falluja proclaimed at the withdrawal of Marines who besieged and bombed them, often carries its own loss; with fighting mostly over, for now, they are more free to bury their dead.

At the city's soccer stadium on Monday, Iraqi youths dug the ragged pitch into trenches where they laid bodies freshly pulled from rubble in neighbourhoods the U.S. Marines held until a few days ago. They pulled back to let an Iraqi force take over.

As plumes of dust and a fetid odour rose from the field, workers planted gravestones -- two and three to a grave, in the case of families -- that mark the cost of a month of siege.

"I thank God for letting us stand up to the Americans, but it is also bitter," said Hamid Eisawy, whose daughter was among those buried as residents of the Golan neighbourhood -- pounded from the air by U.S. bombers last week -- brought out bodies they had been unable to retrieve until now.

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