Mourning in Sadr City, Baghdad’s deadliest district

In this Monday, May 16, 2016 photo, orphan children of truck bomb victims, Mushtaq Talib Jassim Issa, 34, and his brother Dergahm Talib Jassim Issa, 32, sit at their home in Baghdad's Sadr City, Iraq. This sprawling district in northeast Baghdad has witnessed some of the worst violence to hit Baghdad this year as Islamic State group fighters have increasingly tuned to insurgent style terrorist attacks in the face of mounting battlefield losses in Iraq. Along Sadr City's main thoroughfares, fresh black posters bare the names and pictures of the more than 80 killed in the past week. The single deadliest attack this year was also in Sadr City in late February when a double car bombing killed more than 70 and wounded more than 100. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) In this Monday, May 16, 2016 photo, orphan children of truck bomb victims, Mushtaq Talib Jassim Issa, 34, and his brother Dergahm Talib Jassim Issa, 32, sit at their home in Baghdad's Sadr City, Iraq. This sprawling district in northeast Baghdad has witnessed some of the worst violence to hit Baghdad this year as Islamic State group fighters have increasingly tuned to insurgent style terrorist attacks in the face of mounting battlefield losses in Iraq. Along Sadr City's main thoroughfares, fresh black posters bare the names and pictures of the more than 80 killed in the past week. The single deadliest attack this year was also in Sadr City in late February when a double car bombing killed more than 70 and wounded more than 100. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

By Associated Press May 18, 2016 5 min read

BAGHDAD (AP) – Among the dozens killed when a truck bomb struck a crowded market last week in Baghdad’s Sadr City were two brothers, the only sons of Talib Jassum Issa, who got the news in a phone call just minutes after the attack.

“The truck had pulled right in front of the barbershop,” said Issa, as he wearily greeted neighbors and relatives who had come to pay their respects. “When they called me, they said, ‘Your sons are already dead.'”

Both were university graduates – 34-year-old Mushtaq Issa with a degree in communications and his 32-year-old brother, Dergahm, with a teaching degree. But neither could find work in their fields, so they ended up taking jobs at the barbershop. That’s where they were when the bomb struck.

“Their skin was burned to black, like they had been charred,” the elder Issa said, struggling to find words to describe the carnage. “Terrible,” he added, lowering his head.

The May 11 attack marked the beginning of a wave of violence that has claimed the lives of more than 200 Iraqis in and around Baghdad over the past week, leaving hundreds of families like Issa’s shattered.