Children Pay
A Price For
Assault On Falluja
By Rory McCarthy
and Osama Mansour
17 November, 2004
The
Guardian
Evidence
began to emerge yesterday of civilians, including children, who were
seriously injured in the US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja.
As American troops sought to consolidate their control over the city,
patients in a hospital in Baghdad described how they had been hurt during
US bombing raids before the ground assault began last week.
There has been limited
independent information from inside Falluja because of the intense fighting
and the security cordon around the city. Tens of thousands of residents
fled before the fight began, but others stayed behind.
The Iraqi government
insisted last night that there was no humanitarian crisis in the city
and no civilians had been killed.
But there is evidence
to suggest that there have been civilian casualties and shortages of
medical care.
Lying next to each
other in the al-Nouman hospital in Baghdad's Adhamiya district yesterday
were Ala'a Farhan, 11, and his brother Nafar, seven. The elder boy was
injured on his left shoulder, the younger child was missing the lower
part of his left leg. He lay on a hospital bed still dressed in a jumper
and trousers, watching as blood seeped through the dressing on his leg.
The boys' father,
Farhan Khalaf, said his sons had been injured in an air or artillery
strike on the city in the days before the ground assault began last
Monday. It came just as the family was preparing to flee to the nearby
village of Saklawiya, where many other refugees are sheltering.
"We were collecting
our things to go out of Falluja to a place called Saklawiya where there
are other members of our tribe," Mr Khalaf said.
"That's when
we got hit by the Americans. My cousin was with me and we took the children
to Falluja hospital."
On the Sunday night,
before the assault began, US marines and Iraqi forces seized control
of Falluja hospital.
Mr Khalaf took his
injured children, left the hospital, and tried to take them 40 miles
to Baghdad with other relatives.
But as they moved
they came under attack a second time, from what they believe was an
American tank round.
His cousin Falah
Hassan, 38, was killed and his two children were badly injured. Both
are also recovering in the al-Nouman hospital.
The younger boy,
Ahmed Falah, aged two, was in the arms of a veiled female relative.
He had bandages around wounds to his chest, his right hand and above
his right eye. On a bed to the side was his brother, Salah, seven, who
had his left leg wrapped in plaster and many bandages protecting a serious
wound to his stomach.
"When my cousin
was hit and killed his two children were hit as well," said Mr
Khalaf. "We pray that the government will see all this and do something
about it. These children are not terrorists, they are not al-Qaida."
They shared the
quiet ward with another family wrapped in their own suffering. None
of the children cried, the relatives spoke quietly to themselves.
On one bed lay a
young mother, Nasreen Aswad, 19, with a wound to her hand. Next to her
was her seriously injured son, Mustafa, two.
The boy's head lay
on a neatly folded yellow towel, with a book of prayers in Arabic by
his side and a small patch of green cloth pinned on his shirt, a form
of blessing. His left leg was missing and heavily bandaged at the stump.
By his side on the bed was a toy mobile phone, a gift from the doctors.
His father, Ahmed
Aswad, said the family had been leaving Falluja for a village on the
outskirts of the city just before the ground assault.
"My wife wanted
us to go to the hospital for the doctor to check on our child and as
we were walking, about 30 metres from the house, we were hit by a shell,"
he said. "My wife was hit in the hand and my son lost his leg."
The Iraqi Red Crescent
has sent convoys of food, medical aid and blankets to Falluja, although
so far they have been prevented from entering the city. US officers
said the city was not yet secure enough to allow the convoys in, and
said they had enough food and medical supplies available to treat the
injured.
Although it is thought
that most of the city's 300,000 residents fled before the assault, there
have been other reports of civilian injuries. One account from doctors
suggests that up to 20 Iraqi medical staff and patients were killed
when a missile destroyed a health clinic in the centre of town. Other
reports said a boy aged nine died from a shrapnel wound to his stomach
and had to be buried by his parents in the garden because it was too
dangerous for them to leave their home.