"TRAVELERS ON A CIRCUIT OF PAIN". An axis of evil, indeed.

Their goal: to give their relatives religious burials in graves that will mark unjustly shortened lives.

``We are looking everywhere. It is as if we are drowning and searching for a straw to hold on to,'' said Hala Taleb, clad in a black chador and looking for her brother, for whom her ``heart is still burning.''

``Saddam has given us a nightmare. He is living free somewhere, but we're still living the nightmare,'' she said Monday, her eyes watering.

The five first met Saturday at the suspected mass grave south of Baghdad. On Monday, they returned together in the minibus from Baghdad, still grieving, still determined.

Human rights groups say that in Iraq, a country of 24 million people, nearly 300,000 are missing. Some disappeared in the 1980s, when Saddam is believed to have ordered the detention of thousands of communists, rival members of his Baath Party and Shiite Muslim activists. Many were never heard from again.

Read the whole thing here.