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CIVILIAN CASUALTIES AND INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGE IN THE 2003 U.S.-LED ATTACK ON BAGHDAD - March 20-April 1, 2003

INTRODUCTION

The following report is based on firsthand observation and on interviews conducted by the Iraq Peace Team in Baghdad hospitals and neighborhoods. It provides timely information about civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. IPT has gathered this information to supplement such information available from other sources. This report covers March 20 to April 1, 2003, the first thirteen days of the current US bombing attack.

This report makes no pretense of being a comprehensive survey of civilian casualties or of damage to civilian infrastructure. There is much other bombing damage and many other casualties in Baghdad (and elsewhere in Iraq) besides those cited herein. Given our very limited resources and given the constraints of operating in a war zone, our report is a mere sampling and an unsystematic one at that. Nor do IPT members pretend to be trained observers or trained students of war crime or international law. While two or three
of us are fluent Arabic speakers, most IPT members have little or no competency in Arabic. Fortunately many Iraqis speak some English. In some cases we have had to rely on translators.

SUMMARY

NOTE: Asterisks indicate that individual photos are available. Entries are in reverse-chronological order. When known, dates of specific incidents are in parentheses in the heading. Photographed individuals are marked with an asterisk.

Al Kindi Hospital Visit (April 1) : The only survivor from two closely-related families that were bombed in four homes, Ali Ismayal*, 12, sustained third-degree burns on 35 percent of his body and charring of both arms, which required amputation near the shoulders.

Al Ameen (March 31): The uncle and the father of three dead children said that a number of others were wounded. IPT photographed and noted inscriptions on various parts of the weapon.

Al Naser Market (March 28): IPT visited the market the day after it was bombed and interviewed Dr. Ibrahim Sayid Ahmed, and spoke with some of the injured.

Another Incident In The Al Sholeh District (March 28): Dr. Ahmed said that a bomb had fallen on a house in the district of Al Sholeh. IPT saw two of the injured.

Al-Shaab Commerical District (March 26): IPT teams observed the sector where two bombs struck. Buildings on both sides of the road were blackened and damaged.

Al Yarmouk Hospital-March 26 Visit: IPT visited with three children seriously wounded, two of whom had parents who were killed.

Ragi Baa District - Khatoon Al-Athenia City (March 25): Three persons were killed while watching TV, according to the brother of the owner, Achmed.

Abdullah Haamid Hassawi Family (March 25): A blast injured three members of the family and broke the legs of mother and son. Evidence suggested the use of a fragmentation bomb.

Nahrawaan Farm House: This farmhouse was hit by a bomb on March 24 around 4 PM. Three people were killed on the spot. Eight were injured.

Karadat Miryam District-March 24 Visit: One entire block had almost all of the windows, frames, and iron gates that covered windows in these buildings knocked out on all floors.

Al Yarmouk Hospital - March 24 Visit: IPT visited two injured children at Al Yarmouk Hospital.

Al Yarmouk Hospital-March 23 Visit: IPT visited with five injured victims, including one reportedly rendered paraplegic.

Al Qadisiyeh Residential District (March 23): A bomb damaged nine homes and flattened four. The explosion left a crater about 125 feet in diameter and more than 25 feet deep.

Naeemi Family Home (March 22): The bomb hit the left side of the house, making a large hole in the wall of the children's room. The floor of the room caved in.

Hady Al-Khadra Two-Story Home (March 22): A weapon came through the roof and landed in a second-floor room.

Residential Neighborhood About Two Blocks West Of 14 July Bridge Street - March 22 Visit: IPT observed an eight-to-twelve-foot-deep crater in the middle of a wide, divided street.

Mixed Residential-Commercial - March 22 Visit: IPT saw a whole block of mixed residential-commercial units with almost all of their windows knocked out.

The Kulaib Family (March 20): IPT visited with a five-year old girl who had a spine injury and a paralyzed left leg from a bomb or missile explosion. Six others were injured.

REPORTS

AL KINDI HOSPITAL VISIT (April 1)
IPT, including Dr. April Hurley*, spoke with the Director of the Al Kindi Hospital, Dr. Osama Saaleh*. Dr. Saaleh reported that on March 31 his hospital had received 45 casualties, including seven who were dead on arrival, from two bombings -- one in the Al Ameen district and the other in the Al Dhahliyeh district, both on the periphery of Baghdad.

The staff provided photos of an incident on March 30 at about 6 AM in the district of Zaafraniyeh in which two closely related families in four homes were reportedly bombed, the Shurta houses near the old Diala bridge. There was only one survivor of the incident, Ali Ismayal*, 12. Fifteen of the other 16 people who died were: Sabah Gedan Karbeet, 42, male; Husham Sabah Eadan, 10, male; Malek Sabah Eadan, 7, male; Ali Sabah Eadan, 4, male; Madeeha Abd Kathem, 48, female; Sabeha Awad Merdas, 58, female; Fatema
Zaboon Maktoof, 27, female; Nora Sabah Gadan, 14, female; Esmaeel Abbas Hamza, 49, male; Muhammed Taha Abbas, 12, male; Abeer Taha Abbas, 9, female; Muna Taha Abbas, 23, female; Abbas Esmaeel Abbas, 7, male; Azhar Ali Taher, 33, female; and, Kameela Abd Kathem, 49, female.

Ali's aunt, Jamela Abbas, the only surviving relative and who wasn't at the home at the time of the bombing, confirmed reports from the hospital staff that Ali sustained third-degree burns on 35 percent of his body and charring of both arms, which required amputation near the shoulders. Ali also had pulmonary injury from smoke inhalation. Extensive skin grafting and multiple plastic surgeries will be necessary. Abbas' address is Zaafraniyeh, District
50, Street 23, House 8.

AL AMEEN (March 31)
On April 1, IPT visited Al Ameen in the east of Baghdad, the site of a bomb explosion the day before. This is a modest residential area. IPT spoke to some of the neighbors, as well as the uncle and the father of three dead children, Haeden Abdul Mohammed. He said the deceased were: Mohammed, 13, Mohaned, 18, and Akmed Abdul Hussein, 7. They said one of the boys was killed as he was walking to his uncle's home on the street in front of one of the houses. Another boy was outside of his home and the third in a patio
area. They told IPT that there were also a number of wounded.

IPT spoke with Ali Nassar Abrid, 13, who said that he was asleep on the second floor of one of the houses when the bomb hit, and awoke covered with blood. He received stitches to a gash on his upper lip. We were also told that Mustafa Abdul Hussein, 5, was hospitalized with a serious abdominal injury.

In one home where four families are living, we saw two cousins, Ali*, 3, and Alla*, 3-1/2. IPT was told that they were hit by shattering glass. They had been sitting with family members on the floor eating at the time of the explosion. According to their reports, at about 2:30 pm, a bomb or missile exploded in the air and scattered, hitting multiple dwellings, seven houses in total. IPT saw damage to the wall of a rooftop, the wall of another house, and the patio roof of a third house. The walls surrounding the
houses as well as the homes themselves were heavily pockmarked. Metal parts and fragments presumably from the weapon(s) were scattered everywhere.

The team held and photographed various fragments of the weapon. While the weapon may have exploded in the air and then scattered, there was an impact area on one of the patio rooftops that was only a few inches in depth and about one-and-a-half feet in diameter, where the weapon may have hit before exploding. A metal drum about four feet away from this shallow hole had multiple holes and gashes from penetrating objects. When asked where the object was that caused the hole, IPT was told that the Civil Defense had
collected it as well as some of the projectiles that must have been lodged in certain of the deeper pockmarks on the walls. IPT found twisted sharp pieces of aluminum, heavier pieces of metal alloy or lead, parts of what appeared to be a circuit board, parts of casing, foam insulation, wiring, a heavy cylindrical piece of the weapon, and a heavy brick-shaped fragment that we photographed.

One fragment had the inscription JX2N8902, MADE IN USA, 8642. Other fragments, respectively, were inscribed: RADOM NOT PAINT; SEASTROM; RESEAR 01 1365S; YAW A2MP3 9003ASS; MFR 9621.

AL NASER MARKET (March 28)
The largest toll of Iraqi civilians yet since the beginning of U.S. bombings occurred on March 28 at about 6 PM when a bomb fell on a heavily crowded open-air market, the Al Naser Market, in the predominantly Shiite district of Al Sholeh in North Baghdad, a very poor neighborhood. IPT visited the market the next day and talked with neighbors and witnesses. The main hit was on an asphalted lane between a row of metal booths and a row of tents. The crater in the asphalt appeared to be about one meter deep and about
three meters in diameter. The death toll had risen to 57, two of the injured having died after arriving at the Al Nur Hospital, according to Dr. Ibrahim Sayid Ahmed. Of the 48 injured remaining hospitalized, 22 had been transferred to specialized units, he said. Most of the injured that IPT talked to had received shrapnel wounds in their arms, legs, and stomachs.
Others injured were transported to Al Khadamia hospital. A piece of metal reportedly from the weapon was obtained from one of the children gathered there who offered it from his pocket. It appeared to be from the casing. Standers-by reported that three spots on the ground were blood from people who had been killed.

The injured included: Zaina Kadhea*, 14, boy, with a leg injury, one arm broken. and a head injury; Iklaas Fesg*, 26, woman, and; Raison Zait Mohammed*, 55, leg and arm broken.

ANOTHER INCIDENT IN THE AL SHOLEH DISTRICT (March 28)
While visiting the Al Nur Hospital, the IPT team investigating the Al Naser Market incident learned from Dr. Ibrahim Sayid Ahmed that earlier on March 28, a bomb had fallen on a house in the same district of Al Sholeh. There were five children in the house, the doctor said, and two had died, a boy of two and a girl of three. IPT saw two of the injured, Sajad Mohammed*, 3, whose little brother died, and Saja Jaafar*, about 2, whose sister had been killed.

AL-SHAAB COMMERCIAL DISTRICT (March 26)
Two weapons fell around noon on March 26 in the middle of the commercial sector along the main street in the Al-Shaab district of Baghdad about three blocks beyond the Ministry of Trade shopping center. The two blasts resulted in two shallow craters, about two feet deep and six feet long in the median of a wide boulevard. Though the craters were shallow, the bombs projected a horizontal impact spreading over a wide radius.

IPT members Jooneed Khan* and Robert Turcotte* observed about 15 vehicles that were transformed into masses of twisted and burnt metal. The two- and three-story buildings on both sides of the street were blackened and damaged. The team saw twisted metal in destroyed storefronts, mangled cars along the street, and burned out residential houses for a two-block stretch. IPT member Ed Kinane observed two destroyed cars with shredded tires. Most shops along the street showed various degrees of damage, with rubble within
and without. Virtually no windows were left intact in either the upstairs or the downstairs levels.

Some businesses, including what was said to have been a car repair shop on one corner and a restaurant on the opposite corner were left in shambles. Cement debris covered the floor of the restaurant's outside dining area. Cement planters had been heavily damaged. Inside the restaurant was a jumble of white plastic chairs.

About seven storefronts down from the restaurant, there was a small café. Muhammed, 36, and Atman, 30, were two brothers who told IPT member Ed Kinane that they had been working in the café when the attack happened. They said nine people, including women and children, but no soldiers, were in the café at the time drinking tea. They pointed out several holes in the wall from pellets or shrapnel and said that another brother, Sadoon Mucksin, 40, was injured in the left arm and taken to Al Numaan Hospital. They said that five
people living upstairs above the café were injured and been taken to the hospital, but were back home. Sala Myeed, a civil engineer living in the neighborhood, who was present at
the time of the blasts, told of a pregnant woman, Um Juana, who was burned to death in her second floor apartment. Marwwan Nasweer, a medical student, living in the next block along that street, told of two men who were killed while working in an electrical shop. Other people on the street spoke of three men, Abu Hassan, 45, and father of five, Manikit Hamoud, 17, and Saliah Nouri, 28, who were killed as they were working in the Edilme
Restaurant. Also mentioned were Sarif Albari, 36, and his son, Safe, 11, killed in a car repair shop, and three killed in a car: Safa Issan, 17, Marwan, 12, and their father who was driving

Reports indicate that at least 15 persons were killed and at least 50 injured, all civilians -- shoppers, merchants, pedestrians and residents living above the street-level stores.

ALYARMOUK HOSPITAL - MARCH 26 VISIT
On March 26, IPT member Cathy Breen and others visited with the following victims at the Alyarmouk Hospital.
* Amar*, 7, had an emergency chest tube to drain blood from multiple shell injuries. His mother, Hannah, reportedly died in the direct hit to their house that morning. They are from a farming village on the outskirts of Baghdad.
* Mueen*, 8, the son of a farmer, had a drainage tube due to a wound to the abdomen. The doctor showed the team a plastic bag holding parts of his small intestine that had to be removed during surgery to remove shrapnel. His father died in that bombing. His brother, Ali, 6, was wounded in the head.
* Rusel*, 10, was wounded in an explosion outside her door. The team saw the shrapnel in her chest X-ray. She too had a chest tube. Her right hand was fractured.

RAGI BAA DISTRICT - KHATOON AL-ATHENIA CITY (March 25)
On March 28, IPT visited five houses, Numbers 7, 11, 13, 14 and 15, on Street #5, District #320 in the Ragi Baa District of Khatoon in Al-Athenia City, that were damaged by a bomb on March 25 at 12:30 PM. The main house was #13, which was totally destroyed. Three persons were killed while watching TV, according to Mohammend Al Khateed, the brother of the owner, Achmed. The team also interviewed Mustaffa*, a next-door neighbor, and Mustaffa Kasu*, a neighbor across the street and took photographs of the
scene.

ABDULLAH HAAMID HASSAWI FAMILY (March 25)
On March 27, IPT visited the home of the Abdullah Haamad Hassawi family, House #74, Street #3, District 317, located in Al Tujjaar, a residential neighborhood in Al Shaab in North Baghdad. Next door to their home, IPT saw damage to windows of the Balquis Secondary School for Girls. In the Hassawi family home, we saw rubble from walls on the second floor roof patio in the courtyard below, as well as hundreds of marks in the outer walls made from small, uniform, cubed, metal pellets with sharp edges three to five
millimeters thick. In an upstairs room, there was a large blood-stained mattress on the floor.

Family members reported that Muneed Abid Haamid, 25, and his wife, Sahhar, 23, and their son, Qaiser, 6, had been lying on their mattress upstairs when metal fragments from the bomb came in through the window. Muneed said that he instinctively, immediately covered his wife and child with his body and soon felt blood pouring out of his stomach. These fragments broke the glass and injured them all. Muneed suffered major wounds in his stomach, thighs, legs, and feet. His wife and son had their legs broken. They were taken to
the Al Numann Hospital in the Aldemia area.

The many pellet marks on the walls, from top to bottom, but not on the floor of the patio or downstairs in the courtyard, and the low level of damage done to the building, suggest that a fragmentation bomb may have exploded about eight feet above the roof patio and sprayed pellets into the walls. From that point, the bomb could have blasted fragments through the window, hitting the three injured, as well as blown out the windows of the school
next door. The IPT team removed three pellets from one wall. Dr. Jacques Beres, a French plastic surgeon with extensive experience working in war zones, later confirmed that the pellets appeared to be from a fragmentation bomb.

NAHRAWAAN FARM HOUSE (March 24)
On March 25, IPT visited a farm house in the Nahrawaan district, near the Diyala bridge to the north-east of Baghdad. The farmhouse was hit by a bomb on March 24 around 4:05 PM. Three people were killed on the spot. One was a girl, Fateha Ghazzi, 8, Nada Abdallah, 16, a new bride, and the sister of the lady of the house.

Eight were injured, hit by shattered glass, shrapnel and flying debris. They were severely lacerated on the head, arms, legs, chest, and on the sides, according to IPT's Dr April Hurley, present in the emergency ward of Baghdad's Al Kindi hospital when they were brought in. She returned to the hospital on March 25 to visit the victims and compile facts about them. According to the neighbours, who rushed in as we arrived to visit the site
on Tuesday, the house belonged to farmer Ajmi Abdullah Ahmad*, who was hosting two Baghdadi families who had come to get some rest from the US bombings of the city. One of them was the newly wed couple, who had come for their honeymoon. Ahmad Ajmi, 17, the son of the farmer, was the only one to escape unscathed from the explosion. He said he was on the dirt road that runs in front of the house, high above the surrounding fields, when the bomb hit. "It was 4:05 PM and everybody was having tea in the living room on the
ground floor after the mid-afternoon prayers. I heard the blast, turned around and saw the top floor crumble and debris flying in a cloud of dust. Then I heard the shrieks," he said, still shaking from the experience. A neighbor, Kahtaan Hassan Salmaan*, said that a plane dropped three bombs, and one scored a direct hit on the house, the other two falling in the
fields farther away. The roof of a stable beside the house collapsed, killing the cow tethered inside.

Apparent traces of dried blood from the victims dotted the path from the house to the parking space in front where they were placed in the vehicles that took them to Al Kindi Hospital. Debris from the bombs had already been taken away by army security, "in case
they contained radioactive material," witnesses on both sites said. At this site, one small square aluminium box with holes in it, presumably a bomb fragment, had the word VOLEX marked on the inside.

KARADAT MIRYAM DISTRICT - MARCH 24 VISIT
On March 24, several IPT members were taken on a tour of sites that have been bombed recently. These sites included one entire block in the Karadat Miryam district that included three- and four-floor buildings with commercial storefronts on the ground floor and residential dwellings on the upper floors. No military or governmental sites were noticed nearby. Almost all of the windows and frames and the iron gates that covered windows in
these buildings had been knocked out on all floors.

AL YARMOUK HOSPITAL - MARCH 24 VISIT
On March 24, IPT visited the following victims at Al Yarmouk Hospital.

* Nada Adnan*, 14, a high school student, came in with a deep gash and fracture to her right forehead. She also had a piece of shrapnel in her upper thigh. IPT was present when she and her family were brought into the hospital. Her mother had to be restrained as she was so distraught. IPT was told that a missile had crashed into her uncle's home where they were staying, causing the walls to collapse and killing Nada's eight-year-old
sister.

* An elderly woman, Fatima, had fallen in fear during the bombing and fractured her hip. She had already had surgery for the hip. Her ankle was in a cast and her knee was wounded.

AL YARMOUK HOSPITAL - MARCH 23 VISIT
On March 23, IPT went to the Al Yarmouk hospital. This university teaching hospital, one of the largest and most modern in Iraq, is one of three medical centers set up to receive bombing victims; the two others are Al Mansur and Al Kindi hospitals. One of the patients was Rahab Wedad Mohammad, 25,who had just come out of surgery under general anesthesia. Her right cheek was swollen and her right forearm was heavily bandaged. According to the lady doctor, she had severed tendons which they had to sew back,
together with nerves and blood vessels, in the women's section of the hospital.

Rahab reportedly was at her home, in the residential district of Hayy Jamiya, when a bomb hit nearby. It was Saturday night, March 22, on the third day of US bombing, and she was hit by shrapnel that severed the tendons on her right arm.

Zaha Seheil, six, lay quietly on a bed opposite. The doctor said that she was hit in the back, suffering spinal injury that has made her paraplegic.

In the men's section, Rusul Salim Abbas*, 10, had been hit by shrapnel in the chest and on the right hand. That was on Friday night, March 21, when the bombing was the heaviest for four hours continuously. "He went to close the door when he was hit," said Salim, his father, seated on the edge of his bed.

Salah Mehdi, 33, was walking on the street Saturday night, March 22, in the residential district of Amariya when a missile exploded nearby. "I just saw a huge fireball and I lost consciousness," he said with difficulty. He had been hit by shrapnel in the stomach, on the right hand and on the right ear.

On the next bed, Omar Ali, 12, was one of 12 members of his family injured Friday night, March 21, in the residential district of Al Shorta when a bomb hit near their house.

In addition, there also was Majid Mahmoud, 57, and father of two, injured the very first night of bombing, and Hussein Jassim Fleh, 36 and father of a young daughter, injured Saturday night, March 22, in the back, on both arms and legs.

AL QADISIYEH RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT (March 23)
On March 26, IPT visited a residential neighborhood in the Al Qadisiyeh district of Baghdad, near the Al Yarmouk hospital. On Street #26 of Sector (Mohalla) 602, seven adjacent two-story brick homes (#6,8,10/1 and 10/2, and 12, and two homes behind on Street #24) were bombed on Sunday evening, March 23, around 7 PM. Four of the houses were flattened by the weapon, which left a crater about 125 feet in diameter and more than 25 feet deep in the middle of the lot.

Most of the homes were empty, and only two persons were injured, including Hashim Abdul Dayen*. "I was outside at the time, going to a neighbor`s house, when the bomb hit. I turned around and was thrown back by a huge fireball. I just heard the deafening noise and saw bricks flying and clouds of dust rising. I tried to get up four times but kept falling down. I crawled towards my home, shouting for my mother and sister. The neighbors
rushed out to help. It was nightmarish, but was also a miracle. My mother was only slightly injured and my sister was unhurt," said Ahmad Abel-Daayem, 28, from his bed at the Al Yarmouk hospital, surrounded by friends, his right leg heavily bandaged. "It's only after I saw my mother and my sister that I felt the pain in my right leg. It was deeply cut from the ankle to the knee," he added.

NAEEMI FAMILY HOME (March 22)
On March 25, IPT visited the two-story yellow brick house of the Naeemi family, in the Al Khadra district of East Baghdad, a residential neighborhood. The house had been hit by a bomb around 7.30 PM. The bomb hit the left side of the house, making a large hole in the wall of the children's room. The two children are brothers aged nine and seven. The
floor of the room caved in. Only some of the reinforcing steel inside the concrete was left hanging over the room below.Bricks and debris littered the adjacent plot, covering the vegetable garden.
Two banana trees were chopped by the blast. The windshield of a red car parked in front of the house was blown to pieces. According to Samir Mahmood Ahmad*, 60, whose adjacent house had suffered huge cracks in its walls, his family and the Naeemis, about 15 people in all, were together chatting in another room when the bomb hit. Mrs Ahmad and
Mrs Naeemi are sisters. "We all managed to rush out through the door. Luckily no one was injured, but the children are in a state of shock. They panic at the least noise. My brother-in-law has taken them to live with relatives and with other children," said Samir.

Debris from the bombs had already been taken away by army security, "in case they contained radioactive material," witnesses said.

HADY AL-KHADRA TWO-STORY HOME (March 22)
On March 24, IPT went to a home that had been hit by a bomb or missile. The house was a two-story home in the Hady Al-Khadra neighborhood. The weapon came through the roof and landed in a second-floor room that appeared to be a bedroom. The team was unable to meet any of the family who were in the home at the time of the attack; they are now staying with family members. A brother of the owner gave us an account, which was recorded in Arabic. He said the weapon hit about 7:30pm on March 22. There were no serious injuries even though there were eight people in the home at the time.

RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD ABOUT TWO BLOCKS WEST OF 14 JULY BRIDGE STREET -
MARCH 22 VISIT
On March 22, IPT toured a residential neighborhood about two blocks west of 14 July Bridge.Street, between Amar Bin Yasir Street and Jamiaa Street. They drove by an eight-to-twelve-foot-deep crater in the middle of a wide, divided street that connected these latter two streets. Traffic in the westerly direction was blocked. They saw large gardens on both sides of this crater. No building was within sight of the crater. Mr. Mohammed, IPT's
principal driver, said that the gardens were not public parks, but private gardens associated with private homes, one of which is owned by an uncle of his. Around the corner on Jamiaa Street, many smaller homes had had all of their front windows blown out, presumably by a blast from the bomb that created the crater.

MIXED RESIDENTIAL-COMMERCIAL - MARCH 22 VISIT
On March 22, IPT members, Dr. April Hurley, Zehira Houfani, and Robert Turcotte, saw, around the corner from a street with buildings that appeared to be governmental offices, a whole block of mixed residential-commercial units with almost all of their windows knocked out.

THE KULAIB FAMILY (March 20)
On March 26, IPT visited the Al Yarmouk Hospital, which is handling civilian casualties from the West side of Baghdad. Several international press representatives, and still and video photographers with us, including a well-known Japanese photographer, Takashi Morizumi, participated in the visit. At the hospital, there were many rooms full of victims, which we coulde visit.

In the first room, our attention was focused, by one of the doctor's present, on a young boy. He had numerous injuries and was in a wheel chair. At another bed, there was an injured girl, Duha, 5, with her father on one side of the head of the bed, her grandmother on the other. The frightened girl was crying for her mother. The doctor translating and answering questions about her and the other injured was named Dr. Jameel Al Bati. Her
father, Suhail Kulaib, and her grandmother, Abda, were present and also engaged in conversation. The daughter had a spine injury and a paralyzed left leg and may never walk right again.

According to her family, Duha was injured around 5 am, March 20, the first day of the US invasion. The extended family was all huddled together in their small home in the countryside outside Baghdad. The initial bomb and cruise missile attack had just begun. A bomb or missile exploded near their home. Shrapnel from that explosion blew in the door of their home and tore into the flesh of seven family members. Duha's mother, Hamda Abdallah, 28, was at that very moment nursing Duha's year-old baby sister, Hawra Suhail.
Hamda's arms folded around Hawra as she held her to her breast protected the baby. Duha's baby sister, Hawra, had some damage to the back of her body from bomb fragments. She has been discharged from the hospital as has her mother Hamda, who lost a finger that was helping to shield Hawra's tiny body and sustained further shrapnel injuries to her hand and arm.

Also injured were four additional family members, for a total of seven, including: Mustafa Suhail, 3; Duha's brother, who sustained bomb fragment injuries to his arms and legs; Afrah Abdallah, 16; Duha's aunt, who had her feet injured from the blast; another aunt, 17, who received multiple injuries and fractures to her arms; and Duha's other grandmother, Nadwa
Ogaid, 60, who had bomb fragments blasted into her buttocks and thighs.

The Iraq Peace Team
Al Fanar Hotel, room 509
Baghdad, Iraq
(964-1) 718-8007, 717-7440
www.iraqpeaceteam.org
in Chicago: (773) 784-8065

NOTE: This was sent with a long list of photo captions, but the photos were not attached. Perhaps the Chicago office has received them.

[NOTE: This list provides diary entries from Quebec members of the Iraq Peace Team and daily "war updates" from the Iraq Peace Team, now on the ground in Baghdad. To join the list, send a blank email to iptcanada-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. The Quebeckers' diary entries are also posted on www.nowar-paix.ca. Diary entries of other members of the Iraq
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