World’s Biggest Cemetery | RT Documentary

Najaf cemetery in Iraq is the world’s largest and oldest graveyard. Here, 5 million Shia Muslims rest together, close to the Mausoleum of Imam Ali, who they view as the founder of Shia Islam. The cemetery, known as Wadi Al-Salam, the Valley of Peace, has been in use for 300 years, but according to tradition, people have been interred here for much longer. To bury all these people, an army of gravediggers is required. 400 undertakers offices operate in the endless cemetery. They are family businesses, and the job is generally passed on from father to son. It’s not an easy task, particularly when passions are running high as the loved one is lowered into the ground. But someone has to do it. Whenever there’s a war on in Iraq, the dead come knocking in ever greater numbers, and the gravediggers of Najaf giant cemetery are overwhelmed with work. And in this country, war is the norm and peace is the exception: the Iran-Iraq War, the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War and US Intervention, ISIS... the list g