Report from the Brigade: the tenth day of the invasion (CSCAweb: 07-04-03)
Baghdad/Madrid, 29 March, 2003.
Translation by Donald Murphy. ( www.nodo50.org/csca )In Shu'ala, the most recent scene of US military barbarism, the impact of a single missile has caused the deaths of at least 57 innocent people. Shu'ala is a humble residential neighbourhood in the north of Baghdad, on the outskirts of the capital, inhabited mostly by Shi'ites who live in small houses of light-coloured brick. The market of Naser, a busy, open space, was attacked yesterday afternoon by US aircraft at a time when the area's small back-streets were filled with a multitude of men, women, teenagers and children, shopping or simply strolling about . In an empty lot nearby, children and teenagers from the neighbourhood were having a football match when the missile landed: 25 of them were killed instantly.
The Spanish Brigade in Baghdad went this morning to the site to verify the destruction. The impact of the US missile did extensive damage to the right side of the marketplace, destroying the entire complex of shops and stalls, as well as the businesses in the central part. Roofs, walls and shop signs were torn apart by the blast, which this time did not result in fire but rather in a violent explosion of shrapnel.
At Al Nur Hospital, a public surgical and trauma centre and the closest hospital to Shu'ala, Brigade members spoke to one of the doctors in charge, Dr. Mahmud Shihab, who told them that since yesterday 45 victims of the market attack have been hospitalised in this centre alone, all with very serious injuries. Three have died in surgery during the night. The number of victims pronounced dead on arrival in this centre is 41, although Dr. Shahib was informed that other hospitals have also recorded cases of injuries and deaths from the attack. His reflection to the Brigade is the following: "It is an outrage that this is considered a "clean war".
The Brigade states that the hospital wards are filled with injured civilians of all ages --; women, elderly men, adolescents and children.
A young man of 20 years old, Saddam Hussein --yes, the same as the President --, a mechanic by profession, was surprised by the attack while buying fruit at a market stall and watching the football match going on in the adjacent lot. Lying on his bed and accompanied by an uncle, he describes the incident with impenetrable calm, without the slightest gesture of pain or reproach, his eyes a deep black and his face radiant with dignity: during the night his left arm was amputated at the collarbone. He says that the US army travelled thousands of miles to attack the cities of Iraq. He wonders aloud if this is liberty they speak of. He says that he will give his blood and his life for his country.
While the teletypes of the news agencies buzz with speculations as to how the programme of "humanitarian aid" will be carried out, Saddam's uncle, Ahmed, puts it simply and with bitter irony when he speaks of the "impudence of this overwhelming amount of money [2 billion dollars] being put into circulation while they destroy our country and then argue about how to rebuild it".
Cluster bombs used against the civilian population
At Yarmuk Hospital, located in the Qadisiyya district and which the Brigade has already visited several times, it is confirmed once again that despite media reports assuring that the attacks are directed at large institutional buildings like the Ministry of the Interior -- which has now been attacked four times since the beginning of the invasion --, the bomb and missiles attacks have indiscriminately targeted civilian centres and neighbourhoods.
Ahmad Abu Lah, a young doctor of Syrian origin, reports that each day between 10 and 15 injured civilians are hospitalised in the centre. In comparison with the Brigade's visit a week ago, the injuries are much more serious and this is due to the US Air Force's intensifying their use of fragmentation or cluster bombs, a system by which a large bomb is dropped, which then explodes in the air, dispersing smaller bombs that fan out as they fall and on impact burst into thousands of particles of flying shrapnel. Almost all of the injuries here have resulted from these fragmentation bombs and are characterised by shrapnel embedded in various parts of the body, from the head and neck to the abdomen, back, legs and feet. Since the 26th of March, this hospital has recorded 9 instances of victims killed instantly by bombs or missiles, as doctors and families confirmed to the Brigade.
Of the ten patients that the Brigade spoke to, only one of them was a member of the militia. The rest were civilians -- children, men and women --, from all parts of the city, whose homes or neighbourhoods had suffered the impact of missiles or bombs.
They are for the most part family groups, as in the case of Omar Ahmed, age 5, from the Al Rashid area in central-southwest Baghdad, injured by a cluster bomb along with his three sisters. Their mother died last Wednesday as a result of the attack. Ahmed sustained abdominal lesions and ruptures of the gall bladder, liver and intestine.
Ahmad Asa, age 8, injured along with his father --whose foot was amputated -- and his mother and sister -- both with shrapnel wounds. Little Ahmad suffered injuries to the neck, abdomen and right leg.
Salah Ahmed, age 40, who lives 40 km. south of Baghdad in the small village of Al Sufia, entered Yarmuk Hospital on the 24th of March. Four people in his village died in the same attack. His condition is critical as his large and small intestines are both affected, as well as his liver.
Fa'ad Hasim, age 42, was brought to the hospital yesterday, 28 March, injured by the impact of three missiles while driving in his car along the motorway at 8:00 AM. The missiles' shock wave burst the car's windscreen and he received injuries to the leg and abdomen.
Sa'ad, age 36, hospitalised with his brother, age 33, both from another Baghdad neighbourhood, Nahed al Rashid. He described how cluster bombs open up and explode into shrapnel before they reach the ground. He has these type of wounds to various parts of his body.
Yasin Muhamad, a 75-year-old villager from Ahmad, a rural agricultural area on the outskirts of Baghdad. He is suffering from chest injuries. Twenty members of his family were also injured and are hospitalised here or in other centres. On the 28th of March, the impact of a bomb dropped at 21:00 caused his house and stables to collapse, killing all of his livestock. His daughter 'Alia, age 53, her face pale and bandaged, sits alongside one of her injured daughters. They have still not told her that another of her daughters has died.
Fayyed Sohe, a technician at Saddam International Airport, tells the Brigade in fluent English that he was hit on the 24th of March during the attack on the airport. He has shrapnel embedded in his rib cage that still has not been able to be extracted.
Yisiam Maher, a very shy and good-looking boy of seven who has neck injuries caused by the impact of a missile in the garden of his family's home.
Nara Amari, age 25, an employee of the Dora electrical facility, injured in the chest while at home with her husband and daughter, also in the neighbourhood of Naher al Rashid. Her daughter fortunately escaped injury.
Yesus Yazin, age 28, a student at the University of Babel in Baghdad and a member of the militia, hospitalised on the 24th of March after being hit by the shock wave of a missile launched by the helicopter Apache. His vocal cords have been injured and he is unable to speak.
The rhythm of Baghdad is altered day and night by the continual whine of US fighter jets and B-52's flying relentlessly over the city, and by the sounds of the explosions which are an intermittent but sustained feature of life everywhere here. In spite of the combined pressure on the residents of Baghdad which this adds to the attacks themselves, which began on the 19th of March, the population continues to go out into the streets each morning to go about their daily lives. In Shu'ala, after yesterday's brutal killing and catastrophe, area residents have again come out of their houses this morning to walk awestruck through the ruins of the market. Shaken by the destruction and by the deaths of their neighbours, their features have lost some of the freshness and vibrancy of previous days, but even so they remain friendly, communicative and open toward the members of the Brigade. They say that they are not afraid and that they intend to fight, that what happened yesterday makes them even stronger and more determined to resist the aggressors -- the invaders of their country.
Adding a note of perverse irony, while the Brigade winds through the back-streets conversing with the local people, a US military aircraft crosses the sky, leaving behind its menacing trail and causing the windows of the nearby buildings to vibrate. Somewhere, the murderous bombs of the United States are still exploding in Baghdad, and bringing with them more destruction and death.
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