Diary from Baghdad: 'stop military transports!'
Dr. Colette Moulaert calling, 28 March, 2003, 10.15 pm
Bert De Belder
Seeing the horrible images of the American terrorist onslaught on a working class area in Baghdad (50 people killed), I grab the phone and ring Dr. Colette Moulaert in Hotel Palestine. She tells me that her colleague, Dr. Geert Van Moorter, has just left together with some journalists to go and visit the casualties in the hospitals.
'You know', says Colette,' it is dire to know that those bombs may have been transported through the port of Antwerp. You really must take action now to stop the military transports of the US. You must block those trains, by judicial means if possible, by other means if necessary. But move fast. A map shown on Al Jazeera revealed that B52s apparently fly over Belgium. Is that possible? Damnation! I do know that you are working hard in the anti-war campaign, but there's absolutely got to happen more.' Colette sounds miserable. 'People are dying here!'
I convey to her a question of a very worried mother, Liliane Calinescu Alani, who lives in Belgium but has a son in Baghdad. She has not heard from him for two days and she asks us to ask Colette to try and phone him. Colette answers that the phone does not work anymore in Baghdad. 'From here you can only phone the US and the UK now. It must have been those states that have cut the line!'
The internationalists in Baghdad also march against the war. Colette: "Today we had an action together with the 'human shields', on the roof of the building from where the journalists take their pictures. We shouted at the press people: 'do stop lying finally now!' We were carrying posters saying 'Bush go home!' It gave us a good feeling!"
Before ending our communication, Colette once more repeats that we absolutely must stop the military transports…
“Those cowards are targeting civilians”
Dr. Geert Van Moorter on the phone from Baghdad, March 29, 12:30 p.m. (Philippine time)
Live broadcast on radio Veritas (Philippines)
“Yesterday we went to a small hospital in the outskirts of Baghdad. We were there only 2 hours after the local al-Nasser market in the Shula residential area was hit by a cruise missile. The market is located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Baghdad. Definitely there is no military target in a diameter of several kilometers around that market. There are no big buildings, nothing.
The hospital was a scene from hell. Complete chaos. Blood was everywhere. Patients were shouting and screaming. Doctors heroically trying to save their patients. One of the doctors tried to resuscitate a 2-your old child that was still gasping but to no avail… In that small, 200-bed hospital they counted 55 dead, 15 of them children.
I was utterly outraged by what I saw yesterday. It shows once more that the claims about a “surgical war” are brazen lies. It is a dirty war where the civilian population dies. The majority of the casualties here are even women and children. The people we met at the hospital were enraged. “Those cowards!” they shouted, “They don’t fight our troops but target civilians instead!”
Baghdad diaries, April 1, 9:45 p.m.
Dr. Geert Van Moorter through satellite telephone
“Today in one civilian hospital: 2 dead and 30 injured”
“From this morning until late this afternoon, Dr. Colette Moulaert and me were at the Al-Yarmouk hospital. Some thirty injured were brought to the hospital. Apparently, a bomb had struck in the vicinity. I was at the emergency ward where I saw 2 dead and several injured patients because of shrapnels.
The hospital staff already knows us. While other westerners, mostly journalists, are given a short tour, we can freely accompany the doctors. An orthopedic surgeon called me in his consultation room and asked me advice on some of his patients. We exchanged experiences with pain management. It made a welcome change for the psycho-social support we usually give.
When you get to know the hospital from the inside, you notice the shortages: some pain relievers and antibiotics for example. But at a press conference I heard vice-president Ramadan reiterate that Iraq doesn’t need humanitarian assistance. What is needed is the end of the US aggression and the sanctions, and the unfreezing of Iraqi bank accounts. Iraq is too proud to beg for humanitarian aid and understandably so.
But the Iraqi health authorities welcome the assistance of organizations--like Medical Aid for the Third World--that work in the first place for the removal of the root causes of the Iraqi people’s suffering, the armed aggression of the US and the UK, and that show their solidarity with the Iraqi people.
Do you want to hear another anecdote about the weapons inspections? Today we also dropped in at the El-Mustansiriya University. It has been under fire for five days although it had been searched thoroughly by the weapons inspectors who proclaimed it free of weapons. And still it was a target for the US! Are you surprised that the people here say the weapons inspections only served to identify targets for the bombings?”
Support the work of Geert and Colette in Baghdad: Bank account number 001-1951388-18 of Medical Aid for the Third World with reference ”Iraq mission.”
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