Al Fallujah: Eyewitness Reports

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Tuesday February 22, 2005 01:42 by Fintan Bolton

Dr. Mohammad J. Haded, a doctor from Fallujah, and Mohammad F. Awad, director of an aid centre for Fallujan refugees, describe their experiences of the American attack on Fallujah and the humanitarian aftermath at an event in Munich.

On February 19, 2005, at the EineWeltHaus in Munich, I attended a talk given by Dr. Mohammad J. Haded and Mohammad F. Awad, two eyewitnesses of the American attack on Fallujah who are currently on a speaking tour of Germany [1]. The Munich event was organized by Muenchen gegen Krieg, Muenchner Friedensbuendnis and Muenchner Buergerinitiative fuer Frieden und Abruestung.

Dr. Haded gave a personal account of the American attack on Fallujah General Hospital. The General Hospital, which lies at the edge of the town, was one of the first objectives siezed by US marines when the November offensive began. On November 7, 2004, US marines stormed the hospital and encountered no resistance. Doctors and other medical staff were arrested and, in some cases, literally pulled from the operating theatres (other sources report the case of a patient left to die on the operating table, http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000196.php ). The hospital's doctors were interrogated until the early hours of the morning and, in the meantime, soldiers destroyed all of the medical instruments in the hospital. No 'terrorists' were found.

On November 8, patients and medical staff were evacuated from the hospital. Some doctors, however, refused to leave. They had seen soldiers setting things on fire and they feared that if they did not stay, the soldiers might burn the hospital down.

After the marines siezed the General Hospital, Dr. Haded and another colleague went to a small clinic in the town and turned it into a makeshift hospital. At 2 am in the morning, marines raided this makeshift hospital, spraying it with bullets. After this, the patients left because they were frightened and the doctors also left. Two wounded patients were left behind. Dr. Haded learned aferwards that the marines had killed the two wounded patients.

The situation with regard to ambulances was also bad. Prior to the offensive, the government confiscated all but one of Fallujah's ambulances. The remaining ambulance was targeted by US fire, killing the driver and one paramedic.

Three days after the US offensive began, the medical infrastructure of Fallujah had been completely destroyed.

To put Dr. Haded's testimony in perspective, it is worth recalling that the previous American offensive against Fallujah, in April 2004, provoked a storm of protest around the world. Stories of civilian casualties and reports of carnage emanating from Fallujah's hospitals and clinics probably played a significant role in forcing the marines to pull back from the town. This time around, the US was determined to avoid such negative publicity. No journalists were allowed into Fallujah prior to the November offensive and the General Hospital was targeted because "the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties." [2]

Dr. Haded and Mr. Awad also talked about the current humanitarian situation in Fallujah. It is difficult to enter the town, which is still sealed off by American troops, and Iraqis can enter only by passing through one of the US checkpoints. About 20% of the population (60,000 people) have returned, but many of the most basic necessities of life are unavailable. The city itself has been devastated: 20% of the buildings have been destroyed and, of the one hundred or so mosques, thirty-seven have been destroyed. All of the schools remain closed. In the refugee camps around Fallujah, where most of the inhabitants are currently located, conditions are scarcely better: supplies of food, water and medicine are all inadequate.

Haded and Awad have entered Fallujah about half a dozen times in recent weeks, for the purpose of recovering bodies and lending assistance to the town's inhabitants. On each of these trips, they took a great deal of video footage, some of which was shown at the talk. We saw the burnt-out remains of the small clinic where Dr. Haded had worked during the November offensive. We saw the battered streets of Fallujah and a modern urban landscape reduced to a ghost town. There were also some puzzling items: a convoy of a dozen trucks thundering along a dusty road carrying tons of masonry and rubble out of Fallujah. What were the American soldiers doing with this rubble? Also, pictures of dead birds lying, undamaged, at the bottom of their cages. An audience member suggested the birds might have been killed by a modern fuel-air weapon, which sucks all of the oxygen out of the surrounding air.

Amidst the devastation of Fallujah, local residents continue to dig bodies out of the rubble (one such image dated as recently as January 27, 2005). They are receiving no help with this task, neither from the Americans nor from their own government. Who can say how many bodies remain buried beneath the ruins of Fallujah? It is still impossible to guess what the final death toll might be.


References:
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[1] The following link gives details of the speaking tour by Dr. Mohammad J. Haded and Mohammad F. Awad in Germany (German language): http://www.iraktribunal.de/hearing290105/rundreise_awad_haded.htm

[2] Richard A. Oppel Jr.and Robert F. Worth, "G.I.'s Open Attack to Take Falluja From Iraq Rebels", New York Times, November 8, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/middleeast/08falluja.html?ex=1109048400&en=8e00109d0a4e3fd3&ei=5070&pagewanted=1&oref=login


Resources:
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. The following article, "Fallujah's Health Damage", provides an good overview of the attacks on Fallujah's health infrastructure:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7369.htm

. The bombing of the Hay Nazal Emergency Clinic in Fallujah on November 5, 2004 is described in this BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3988433.stm

. Here are some relevant extracts from the Geneva Conventions:

- Convention IV: Part II: Art. 18: Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict. ...

- Convention IV: Part II: Art. 19: The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.