The Tsunami
Of Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
17 January, 2005
Dahrjamailiraq.com
The
morgues at the hospitals of Baghdad are filling to capacity. At Yarmouk
Hospital in central Baghdad, the three freezers reek of decaying bodies,
despite the temperature.
The smell rushes
out at us as the doors are opened. Ive smelled the burning bodies
on the funeral pires in Nepal
but this is different. This smell
how
do I describe it? But it never leaves me, long after we leave the hospital
later.
The smell rushes
out at us as the doors are opened. Ive smelled the burning bodies
on the funeral pires in Nepal
but this is different. This smell
how
do I describe it? But it never leaves me, long after we leave the hospital
later.
Many of the bodies
are from Fallujah, obviously picked off the streets-parts of which are
eaten by dogs. The bodies from Fallujah have the typical oddly discolored
skin, along with other abnormalities.
I walk out of the
first freezer straight into a metal pole. Two of the people with me,
including Abu Talat, make sure Im ok as I stand there stunned
I
didnt even feel the pole, just that it stopped me from proceeding
to the next freezer.
Bodies are piled
into the freezers and most are uncovered, but not all. The hardest visuals
to get out of my head are those of the eyes.
The doctor with
us says that most of the bodies have been shot
and are not from
Fallujah. The violence against Iraqis continues unabated
worsening
by the day.
I do my job
taking
photo after photo of the most horrible thing Ive ever seen in
my life. Many of the bodies are so old they are shrinking into themselves.
After the last cooler,
we start to walk away. I am spitting, trying to get the smell to leave
me
Abu Talat is staring off into distance. After I gag, the hospital
worker who accompanied us to the coolers walks towards me with a small
vial of scent, and begins rolling it across my upper lip.
Shukran jazeelan
(thank you very much), I tell him, then he proceeds to do the
same for Abu Talat, then we walk on.
We talk with the
doctor more as we shuffle along. The morgues in all the hospitals
are filling with bodies everyday, most of them shot by soldiers,
she says, But also from crime and accidents. So many dead civilians.
We walk, well, kind
of shuffle out of the hospital, towards the car.
That is the
most horrible thing Ive ever seen in my life, I say to Abu
Talat.
We get in the car
and just drive.
I dont
know what to do, I tell him, What do you want to do?
He holds his hands
up, expressing that he doesnt know either. Lets just
drive, I say.
Ok, Im
just trying to drive, he replies.
I decide to go buy
some supplies
grasping towards normalcy as I catch whiffs of the
decaying bodies despite the nice smelling scent that was rubbed across
my upper lip.
We buy some lunch
only because its lunch time and were supposed to be hungry,
then drive the rest of the way to the hotel.
My head is spinning,
as is Abu Talats. I am traumatized, I tell him. Yes,
my head is spinning also, he replies before adding, I want
to take a shower.
I wish I could
shower from the inside, I tell him.
From the outside
its very easy, he says quietly, But how do we clean
from the inside?
We go to my room
and I begin writing. The food sits in its bag on the couch
Abu
Talat says, In Islam, if we touch a dead body, even if we just
see one, we should shower, he says while walking into the bathroom.
He pauses as he
catches me staring out the window at nothing, Hey, dont
think about it. I know it is hard. I slowly look up at him as
he adds, It is harder on me, because I am Iraqi. My heart is shredding.
He walks into the
bathroom of my hotel room to take a shower, as I go back to writing
this.
Nobody knows who
these dead people are. The coolers are full. Others are full too, in
the other hospitals.
He finishes and
begins to pray as I start my shower, trying to wash the bodies away.
It helps, some.
But its the
eyes that got me. And they wont go away.
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