In one house after another, the soothing voices mingled with the sobs of wives, mothers and sisters over a hum of visitors’ murmured condolences.

The walls of a small nearby mosque were draped with 22 black cloths on which the names of the husbands, sons and brothers being mourned will be inscribed in white paint, as is the custom in Iraq.

The grieving families in this predominantly Shi’ite district had collected their dead — all Sunnis — on Friday amid fury at the execution-style murders of the men and terror at the spread of sectarian killings in the run-up to this Saturday’s referendum on a new constitution.

Many believe the killers’ aim is to drive them out in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that is polarising communities, casting suspicion on the Iraqi police and undermining confidence in the ability of the Baghdad government to maintain security.

Some relatives of Iskan’s dead have already packed up and moved to Sunni areas where they feel safer.

The murdered men’s bodies were shrivelled beyond recognition when they were found where they had lain for a month in the desert more than 70 miles away, near the town of Badra.

But the blindfolds wrapped around their heads were intact, along with the cuffs of metal, plastic and rope used to bind their hands. One or two shots fired into each man had ended their lives.

“Why were they killed? What did they do?” shrieked one mourner as he prepared for a street procession of coffins to their place of burial on Friday.

The answer is difficult to discern. What is known is that all the Sunni victims were married to Shi’ite women. However, this is not uncommon in Iraq and is thought unlikely to be the motive for their murder.

One clue may lie in the alleged presence of Iraqi police officers when the men’s killers came to take them away. According to witnesses, about 40 police vehicles and four-wheel drives from the interior ministry stormed the district in the early hours of August 8.

The families say the police accompanied masked members of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of Iraq’s main Shi’ite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The Badr Brigade was funded, trained and equipped by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The raiders accused their targets of being Sunni insurgents or of helping the insurgency, although their families vigorously deny it.

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