(12.9.2009) „We didn‘t recognise any of the dead when we arrived,“ said Omar Khan, the turbaned village chief of Eissa Khail. „It was like a chemical bomb had gone off, everything was burned. The bodies were like this,“ he brought his two hands together, his fingers curling like claws. „There were like burned tree logs, like charcoal.

„The villagers were fighting over the corpses. People were saying this is my brother, this is my cousin, and no one could identify anyone.“

So the elders stepped in. They collected all the bodies they could and asked the people to tell them how many relatives each family had lost.

A queue formed.