Trapped In Their Homes, Families Fall Victim To Sickness and Hunger
It took eight years for Nur Muhammad, 35, finally to fall pregnant with the child she desperately wanted. Last week, Ali, her pride and joy, became the youngest victim of the upswing in violence.
The four-month-old baby boy fell ill last Monday with a fever, the day fighting broke out in Basra, the second-biggest oil city of Iraq. The street where the family lives became a battlefield, imprisoning them in their home, unable to get help.
‘The disease spread so fast. My husband tried to leave our home to look for help but he was shot in his leg in front of our house,’ Muhammad said. ‘My only child was seriously sick and I also had to look after my injured husband. I was forced to use a knife sterilised with a lighter to take the bullet from his leg.’
No one was able to reach the house with medicine or food until Friday afternoon. Ali had died in the morning. ‘It took me a few hours to realise my son had become an angel. He was shining and had a smile on his face,’ she said. ‘I waited all my life to have my baby and now a ridiculous political fight for supremacy took him away from me.’
Muhammad, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, was in deep shock. ‘I don’t have a reason to live anymore. My husband threatened to divorce me if I didn’t give him a child and now I doubt he will stay married to me now that Ali has been taken.’
Since Monday, when Basra erupted in violent clashes between the Mahdi army of Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi government, hundreds of families have been unable to leave their homes to look for food, water, health care, and oil for generators.
Officials report that more than 160 have been killed and at least 400 injured in the last five days.
‘By the time many of the injured reach the hospital, they cannot be saved. The difficulties in getting to medical centres also costs lives. Even medical staff can’t get to work as the situation on street remains critical,’ said a clinician at Basra Main Hospital, who asked to remain anonymous. ‘We are lacking medical supplies and parts of the hospitals have no electricity. Pregnant women are risking home deliveries.’
Khalid Jalal, 36, a pharmacist and father of three, said his family had been without food and electricity since Tuesday. He said: ‘My children are starving and masked militants have prohibited us from leaving our home. I cannot stand seeing my kids crying for food and forced to drink unclean water because militants believe they are God’s soldiers.
‘God doesn’t want a human being to suffer - but that is what the fighters and the government are giving us, rather than the promised US democracy. They are looking for supremacy while innocent people die for no reason,’ he said. ‘I was happy when the British troops left Basra, but now I urge them to come back to save the lives of my children.’
The International Committee of Red Cross is concerned about the humanitarian impact of fighting in Basra and Baghdad and says many families are now reduced to bringing their own generators to Baghdad hospitals to ensure they have sufficient power supplies.
Schools, universities government offices and shops are closed in Basra and many neighbourhoods of Baghdad. Streets are empty and few faces can be seen near windows.
In the Shia mosques of Baghdad, Basra, Hilla, Nasiriyah and other southern provinces, religious leaders call for support and criticise the government’s attitude towards Sadr followers. They accuse the Shia Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, of being a betrayer and an American devotee.
There are food and medicine stockpiles in a number of warehouses in Basra but so far it has been impossible to distribute them. Aid delivery has stopped inside the city until security improves. A curfew in Basra was eased on Friday to allow movement around the city from 6am to 6pm but, in many districts, the actions of militants have kept them indoors.
British military spokesman Major Tom Holloway said coalition forces were providing air support and helpinto refuel Iraqi helicopters and transport planes. ‘The British military is providing air power over Basra as the Iraqi air force doesn’t have fast jets yet,’ Holloway said. ‘We are closely helping to provide military support to bring peace back to Basra.’
Funerals have been seen taking places in areas of Baghdad and Basra where clashes have diminished; anger and desperation are etched on the mourners’ faces.
‘My uncle and cousin were killed in an air strike in Sadr City on Friday. The US says it is just attacking militants so how can they explain how two innocent people, who were hard workers and far from politics and social issues, are now dead?’ said Assad Hassan Alawi, 24, a student in Sadr City.
‘They left women and children without anyone to bring them food. Maybe they are going to be the next victims - not from an air strike, but from hunger caused by the unfair Iraq invasion,’ he said. ‘I’m against the war, the fight for power and any religious leader who, instead of spreading the true Islamic peace, multiplies violence and death.’
© 2008 The Guardian
Why are Bush and Cheney and their henchmen and henchwomen not tried as the war criminals that they are? Where is the justice? What kind of monsters have we become?
It seems TW the kind of monsters that have become apathetic, by the large amount of posts.
I feel badly, before we occupied Iraq the women weren’t fearful to get their own food or find their way, with Shi’i in control in comes Shari’ah, wearing of niqab and abaya, one seemed more fearful of losing her husband then her Ali.
We have annihilated an ancient culture by choice, we chose this. We are the boogeyman…
TW — Please maintain your balance and realize that the purpose of this (in the grand arc of spiritual history) is creating the contrast to drive us into
It is that itself that is missing: We ARE ALL ONE.
One cannot shoot oneself in the foot w/o causing extreme pain, although the global nervous system has yet to become sufficiently wired for that awareness to enlighten humankind.
Namaste (click on blue underlined link above to discover the meaning)
I had to pause in the middle of the article after reading about the poor woman whose baby died. I wish I could help the starving children and other people in Iraq.
When is the U.S. going to be charged with crimes against humanity - war crimes?? I’m ashamed of this country. These are human beings the U.S. has slaughtered for oil and for Israel.
What the imperialists have done to the Iraqis is about as evil as it can get.
Shame on the corporate American media. They’re breathlessly chasing after political sniping between Clinton and Obama and ignoring these stories. I have to wonder if the American people would be so passive if they had these stories in their face?
A child falling into a well becomes a cliffhanger for the entire country and appears unaware that we have turned a country of 25 million (reduced from 26 million thanks to Bill) into a slaughterhouse.
On the other hand, Abu Ghraib appeared to be more of an embarrassment than a horror, so how do I know how Americans would take this?
kathyodat
The Bush/Cheney crime family all need to be hauled before the International court at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity trials. Then after they are convicted, they can be disposed of like the trash they are.
I am so ashamed to be a US citizen that if I were 10 years younger, I’d leave this country. I am 70 and too poor to leave now.
I don’t believe that it’s apathy that causes us not to see the problems that the Bush legacy (both father and son) have brought to the world. I believe that it’s part the lack of empathy and part sensory overload that causes us not to understand how the US and other dictators have brought suffering.
Through the unreliable reporting from the media, the dehumanizing of those different from us, the attitude in the US that we deserve the world’s bounty, and the glamorizing of some violent TV shows, we tend not to see other people as good as us, and also see them as deserving of the problems that they have.
The media does it’s part by reporting that almost any death by US forces is that of an enemy combatant, or rebel, or jihadist, or some sort of negative label. In rare cases where an actual civilian is killed the media buries the story. Civilian deaths are under reported, and most of us can’t picture the death of 100,000 people and the complete destruction of a country, and all the problems that it brings. All we tend to see is the US causalities, (front page news when it hit 4000).
During the past decade, all we have heard about is the death and destruction from 3rd world countries (another label that tells us that they are not as good as us), from Africa, South and Central America, Central Asia, China, and other spots around the globe. It’s become ‘old news’ when some dictator or little god goes on a rampage and slaughters a few thousand people, causes a civil war, or invades a neighboring country. It’s also become ‘old news’ when corporations cause thousands of deaths through their business practices of toxic waste production and dumping, production of shoddy and dangerous merchandise, arms production and supply to both sides of a conflict.
We have become desensitized to the practices of our government and corporations. One of the few sites that produce reliable news and the problems that individual people face is Common Dreams. If more people would read the articles written here, we may be able to feel the pain that our government and it’s allies have caused in the name of a “War on (or in this case ‘of’) terrorism”.
Re. Abu Ghraib, kathyodat, I agree with you, but I wonder if attitudes will change when the DVD documentary being produced is released.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/26/7904
Nur Muhammad’s story is sad, tragic, and I sure hope her husband isn’t ass enough to divorce her now that they’ve lost their son; it’d be a horrible and absurd thing of him to do. If he does, then he’ll merit being taken out to a field and kicked around for a while; “See what you get for disrespecting your wife, you dumb sh*t cave!”.
I hope it’s not the Mehdi going around shooting innocent civilians; something they must not do. Their demands of or towards the puppet Iraqi govt, so the U.S. govt, are wholly right from what I’ve gathered; and they should stick with being right. Shooting innocent civilians is not permissible; never is! Moqtada al-Sadr needs to tell all of his Mehdi supporters to not target anyone who’s unarmed, as well as those who are armed, but who are not targeting the Mehdi.
Nur Muhammad refers to the fighting sides seeking ’supremacy’, and while the U.S. has obviously been doing this ever since fall 2002, or actually earlier, and the Badr and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani seem, as well as Da’wa, seem to be seeking supremacy, while that’s not possible unless it’s with the U.S.; well, I don’t picture the Sadrists as seeking supremacy. The latter, imo, are only seeking a unified and sovereign national Iraq, foreign occupiers OUT, etcetera.
It’s good to see that many of the Shiite religious leaders of the southern provinces of Iraq are condemning the puppet Iraqi govt.
“In the Shia mosques of Baghdad, Basra, Hilla, Nasiriyah and other southern provinces, religious leaders call for support and criticise the government’s attitude towards Sadr followers. They accuse the Shia Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, of being a betrayer and an American devotee.”
That’s wholly good, right, and that these are Shiite religious leaders makes it all the better; given the Mehdi, Badr, ISCI, and Da’wa are all Shiite.
Maybe Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is much or wholly of the same view, while we’re just not reading anything about any statements from him in these articles. I wonder what his position is on this present inter-Shiite conflict.
Quoting from the article, “‘My uncle and cousin were killed in an air strike in Sadr City on Friday. The US says it is just attacking militants so how can they explain how two innocent people, who were hard workers and far from politics and social issues, are now dead?’ said Assad Hassan Alawi, 24, a student in Sadr City.”
Seems to me that civilians are, and by far, MOSTLY the Iraqis killed by the US in this war. I wonder what the tolls of Iraqi civilians vs Iraqi fighters or resistance members are; but think it’s surely much higher, including proportionally, among the civilians killed.
And I include all Iraqi civilians killed, and from violent attacks and when death is due to very deliberate and criminal lack of restoration of essential utilities; ALL of the ‘excess deaths’ caused by this war. So it includes ALL killed by the U.S., et al, in both direct and indirect terms; for, and f.e., the Iraqi death squads within the puppet Iraqi govt’s “security” forces killing innocent and civilian Iraqis would not have happened if it was not for the criminal U.S. govt, Bush-Cheney cabal, etc. After all, Bush-Cheney and the U.S. military commanders in Iraq clearly allowed these terrifying death squads to operate and for a LONG time; really doing nothing noteworthy at all to stop these insane crimes, and the perpetrators.
The U.S. et al, so also including the puppet Iraqi govt pols, are guilty for or in all of these Iraqi [excess] deaths; imo.
I wonder if the Dalai Lama is still undecided in terms of what view to take on this war on Iraq; as he was quoted saying in Nov. 2005 (at a talk at Stanford U.) and again in Jan. 2006 (interview with A. Pal at or of The Progressive), when (and both times) he said that he was wholly for non-violence, while recognising that ‘action’, meaning (or else saying) the violent and forceful kind, is sometimes needed or justified, and that it was too early to tell with respect to Iraq; too early for him. Duh?!
Well, and listening to Radio-Canada (French version or alternative of CBC), I just heard a report quoting words of some schmuck elitist Iraqi in Iraq condemning Moqtada al-Sadr; very derogative, calling him an immature leader, and worse words. Hell!
Since when is it mature to betray one’s country and its population, as the Shiite religious leaders of southern provinces of Iraq correctly say of PM Nouri al-Maliki; calling him a traitor and an “American devotee”?! Since when is cowardice a sign of maturity?!
I’ve been on Moqtada al-Sadr’s side throughout, except for the launching of the war, in which case I believe he was among the Iraqis who were then happy to see Saddam removed; although understandably. I also did not side with death squad crimes, though don’t know that there’s ever been actual proof found that would definitely indicate that the Mehdi also committed some of these acts. Politically, though, I don’t recall having read of him making any unfitting demands; and when he pulled Sadrists out of the Iraqi govt, Parliament I guess, the Sunnis also did, and both were right.
It’s ALL the USA’s fault; or the U.S. and its criminal allies.
Some Americans are aware of the needless killing in Iraq.
We have an admin that doesn’t care…it is about power, control, and oil. In this corporate battle, the admin and neocons do NOT care about who gets killed…not American deaths or Iraqi deaths…they are all collateral damage in the corporate greedy war.
The media will not even show most of this on television, so the bulk of Americans are kept at arms length as to information.
If the truth were out, more Americans would be outraged…maybe they should read more on sites like this in leiu of running down to Starbuck’s (which, as was reported, the top dog owner is a Zionist neocon himself)
No one is exempt from killed in this corporate war…or spied on…or arrested.
It most certainly is a corporate war. The loss of all these lives–Iraqi, American, and others is of no regard to those waging and profiting from it. It makes me mad as hell.
I am grieving, in mourning for what our country has become and what we do to ourselves and others.
We must leave Iraq immediately. We must spend the money on human needs here and for reparations in Iraq. We are too corrupt to lead the re-building of Iraq. We should provide funds. We just have to get out.
Please demand to your mayors and governors that they make a statement against the war every time they cut budgets. The unbelievable brutality against the Iraqis is also causing hardships here. Both of our peoples need peace.
This is Horrible. _ We should all be out in the streets._ This evil has reached a new depth of Hell. Brought to the many beleaguered and innocent by our very own BushEmpire and American tax dollars. Speechless. Beyond sorry. shocked and ashamed at this mess of Elitist, Imperialist, Racist(?) ugliness. A World Court is the only logical next step to this mess. Where are the voices of the true leaders among people..?
If an Alien landed and said “take me to your leader”.. who would we take them to exactly?
Bush and cheney need to be tried for the war criminals they are. They can take their pitiful party-and their pathetic political ideology and shove it!
I just cannot believe there are people in the US so stupid, and so heartless, and so blind, and so arrogant, as to even considering allowing a doddering old fool like McCain to continue this butchering of the innocent.
This war is a horror-bush and cheney need to be grabbed right by the scruff of their necks and hauled before an international court for their crimes. Maybe we need a citizen’s arrest.
I know maybe I am one of those people who blames Bush to much for the mess this country is in. When half the country who voted this nut into office is just as responsible. But, it seems to me like we have become an immoral country since he took office. We went from a humane country into being a rogue nation full of fascist lunatics bent on controlling the world. I never thought I would see a day when the US tortured prisoners and half the population was barbaric enough to agree with it. We watch people in Iraq being murdered, starving and terrorized by our forces and don’t seem to have enough compassion in our souls to realize these are people just like us. We can’t see the correlation between the insurgents and what we would do if a hostile force invaded us. We have always seen ourselves as above the rest of the world, serving as a moral role model. But, something happened on 9/11 that changed that. People in this country went off their rockers and became barbaric hoard determined to conquer anything that wasn’t nailed down!
It isn’t the first time we were victims of a terrorist attack. And it will probably happen again. It’s happened numerous times before. Both of them (Oklahoma City and first World Trade Center) were just about as bad. Maybe not the loss of life but the damage to our ego’s was just as bad. We had an Administration who was willing to use that incident to their own selfish ends. But, are we going to go berserk and start tearing up the world because of it???? It’s time people starting resisting Bush’s insanity of preemptive war when someone looks at us crossed-eyed. It’s brought us nothing but misery and a lot of debt.
Everyone is a prisoner in one way or another.
Here in the usa you would have to be making $100,000 for a dr to look at you.
Millions go to work here injured and impaired so they can pay taxes to help all of the illegals obtain care for free.
kathyodat as always expressing the truth.
After all these crimes we still claim to be proud to be American. How dysfunctional is that ?
RIDDIMBOY — Damn being an American - I’m not proud to be a human being and share genetic material.
Something is clearly not functioning in the conscience/consciousness department overall, but perhaps the contrast still needs to be turned higher, for more to see for themselves? There has never been a substitute for personal experience, regardless of the costs recorded by others, it is human nature to view the world through very self-styled lenses of perception.
Besides, I mostly identify (in the now) with my non-physical source energy, so being a human being is somewhat liken to being just a meat sack with opinions (and of course material goodies) — unless one is taking committed action to advance some noble cause or purpose.
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
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