Last month in Iraq, 126 US soldiers, five soldiers from Great Britain and other countries, and about 2,770 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to figures collected by Iraq Body Count. In newspapers and on Web sites, we read about American casualties, both the dead and the wounded. But it is difficult to find news stories that focus on individual Iraqi casualties.

Personal details drop out when only a few reporters are working on the dangerous streets of Iraq, many Iraqis are afraid to talk with reporters, and large-scale carnage is occurring. For example, although 652 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first week of May, news reports included the names of just 14, according to Iraq Body Count records (www.iraqbodycount.org).

Yet only by hearing about the lives and deaths of people who are dying, by seeing the faces of Iraqis as well as Americans, can we begin to really understand what is happening.

During the past month, I've read both our local newspaper and the Internet sites of a broad range of international media, searching for news of Iraqi civilian casualties of war. I learned two things. Even on the Internet, there is little except casualty counts. I had to dig hard to find anything.

And in our local paper (the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon) there is more than I realized, though it is easy to overlook. Most days, on page two of the main news section, there are composite articles about Iraq, picked up from large wire services. Although these articles focus on political and military developments and general descriptions of the preceding day's violence, they sometimes include, whether in paragraph seven or 12, glimpses of Iraqi civilians who have died. For example, Sami Hussein lost her five-year-old son in a Baghdad market bombing (A.P. May 21) and Saif Fakhry, a TV news cameraman, was killed while he walked to the mosque with his pregnant wife (A.P. May 31).

Looking at international media, I've found more glimpses to add to the shadowy picture of Iraqi civilian casualties of May 2007.

* May 1: Nejim Mohammed Hussein, a Kirkuk blacksmith, refused to cooperate with militants. They burned him alive in his car in front of his blacksmith's shop (Agence France-Presse).

* May 7: Jaafar al-Anbaki and his wife taught in the same elementary school in Diyala province. Gunmen stormed the school and executed the two teachers in front of their students and colleagues (Voices of Iraq).

* May 7: A roadside bomb exploded beside a US patrol in Baghdad. The soldiers started firing, and their bullets pierced the walls of a nearby house and killed Zaruhi Karabet, a 79-year-old Armenian Iraqi woman who lived inside (Karabakh Open).

* May 8: According to Iraqi security sources, shots were fired at a US helicopter in al-Nada village in Diyala province, and soldiers in the helicopter returned fire, hitting Al-Saada elementary school. Witnesses said six children were killed and six others wounded (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty).

* May 23: Samarra is a city of 300,000 where the Iraqi government and the US military have imposed a blockade since May 6, when a suicide bomber killed a dozen police officers. No vehicles are allowed into the city; it is difficult for residents to find food, water and medical supplies. According to a doctor in Samarra's largest hospital, at least ten people, including seven babies, have died because of a lack of power for incubators and other medical equipment. Doctors for Iraq has called for an end to the blockade, which it calls "collective punishment" (Inter Press Service).

* May 27: Khalil al-Zahawi, known as Iraq's "sheikh of calligraphers," trained practitioners throughout the Middle East in classical Arabic calligraphy. Gunmen pulled him from his car outside his Baghdad house and shot him (BBC).

* May 30: Thirty-one-year-old Abdul Rahman al-Isawi lived with his family in Amiriyat-al-Fallujah and worked as a freelance reporter. Late at night, "gunmen entered his house and dragged him with his father and brother to a nearby orchard, where they shot them," said Mohammed Hussein, al-Isawi's cousin. Five other family members also died at the hands of the gunmen. Two other Iraqi journalists also were killed: in Kirkuk, Mahmoud Hakim Mustafa, editor of Hawadith newspaper, and in Amara, Nazar Abdul Wahid, a 38-year-old father of three who was on his way to a journalism workshop (Reuters).

These are 33 Iraqi civilians among the 2,770 who died last month. May they all rest in peace.

--Kate Rogers Gessert, a writer and E.S.L. teacher, wrote "Undercovered," a digest of news related to war, politics and the environment, for Eugene Weekly in Eugene, Oregon from 2001 to 2005. This article was previously published in Eugene's Register Guard.