BAGHDAD, Sept 1: The stench of death hovered over a Baghdad bridge on Thursday as bodies continued to surface of people who had fallen to a watery end in the Tigris River during a stampede of Shia pilgrims.

Nearly 1,000 people — mostly women, children and elderly — drowned or were crushed to death or suffocated on Wednesday on the Aimmah (Imams) Bridge, attempting a chaotic escape after rumours that a suicide bomber was among their number.

Many bodies had still not appeared on Thursday, witnesses said, as people rummaged among thousands of sandals carpeting the bridge to find clues about the fate of missing loved-ones.

“This is the shoe that my brother wore. He borrowed it from me to perform the pilgrimage,” said tearful Abdulkarim Mankhy.

“What happened to you, brother? Where are you now?” he wailed, clutching the shoes to his chest.

“My brother has two kids and they are expecting me to return with their dad,” added 28-year-old Mankhy, who lives in Sadr City, the crowded and poor Shia district in southern Baghdad.

Despite fears of a sectarian backlash from the tragedy, the caretakers of a nearby Sunni mosque sheltered scores of the wounded and survivors, and displayed identification cards of the dead for the relatives to identify.

Some families were almost wiped out in the stampede which occurred as hundreds of thousands of Shia faithful descended on the northern Baghdad neighbourhood of Kazimiya to visit the shrine of Imam Mussa Kazim (AS).

After finding the bodies of his father, mother and sister in a Baghdad hospital, Attiyah al-Shumari was at the scene of the tragedy looking for his younger brother. He railed in anger at officials and security forces.

“I have been here since the early hours of the day, just in case the body of my brother was recovered. I did not see police, nor army, rescue teams or any officials,” said Shumari, 32.

He said neighbourhood residents were helping to recover bodies from the river.

“They recovered earlier the bodies of a woman and a boy when the cloak of the woman surfaced,” he said.— AFP