CPTnet
May 9, 2003
IRAQ UPDATE: May 9, 2003 8:00pm/12:00 pm EDT
Lisa Martens reported from Basrah. There is a lot less gunfire than in
Baghdad. Looting is still happening and residents are angry that British
troops do so little to stop it.
She and Stewart Vriesinga visited the homes of friends in the low-income
Jumurriyah neighbourhood of the city. A smell of raw sewage hung over the
whole area and there was no electricity. One friend's mother had just
returned from the market and said that she had not bought anything because
everything was too expensive. The family has three weeks of food left from
the last ration distributed by the UN just before the war.
The team then visited three schools. One had been occupied by Iraqi soldiers
who removed their weapons in retreating. British forces subsequently
confirmed that the building was clear of ordnance and safe. About 100
children now attend school out the previous 1,000. An adjacent girls' school
and college are not operating because they were looted and remain filthy.
The team moved on to the Arbata Astamuz neighbourhood where the two
Christians were killed yesterday. A sister of one of the deceased said, "We
are brothers and sisters of the Muslims. They are not our enemies." Muslim
friends came during the team's visit and wept with the Christian family.
In the Tuaysa neighbourhood, the team visited the site of a big bombing on
Apr. 5 where four civilian homes were bombed, killing ten people in a
doctor's family, seven people in another family, and six people in a third
family. U.S./British forces said that they thought "Chemical Ali" was in one
of the houses.
The team met a judge across the street whose home was badly damaged by
shrapnel from the same bombs. In the 1980s, he had been jailed for two years
and his car and other assets were seized by Saddam Hussein. He said,
"Saddam was a little monster. Then the U.S. and British and Russians fed him
until he became a big monster." He is married to a Christian woman and
said, "I did not force her to become Muslim. That is the way it should be
here." British troops visited his damaged home several times but have
offered no compensation. He said he has no money for food let alone repairs.
"We need financial assistance. We have no trust with the occupiers. We want
the occupiers to be real humans and treat us as real humans."
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