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He had wanted to be a doctor... <START FWD> From: pattrice le-muire jones <pattrice[AT]bravebirds.org> Please read and forward this eyewitness account from Baghdad, which reached the USA via media satellite email. I verify that it and the letter that accompanied it are in the writing style of the signed author, Italian activist and journalist Marinella Correggia, who asked me to distribute it. --Pattrice Jones ALI ISMAIL EEDAN, A SYMBOL OF THIS DIRTY CRIMINAL WAR By Marinella Correggia in Baghdad via Pattrice Jones (pattrice@bravebirds.org), to whom correspondence for Marinella may be directed Ali Ismail Eedan, a symbol of this dirty criminal war against the Iraqi people, a war which violates every international law... I am writing this from Baghdad at 11 p.m. of April 4th 2003. I am in a small hotel near the Tigri with the Iraq Peace Team and outside I don't know if it is missiles (American bombs incoming?) or artillery, anyway the sound is different than the other night. The Americans are very near. We have no more light since yesterday: They bombed the electrical plant. But before the light from generator is cut, let me tell you the story of Ali Ismail whom I met this morning. I hope this story can go out through some satellites of journalists and through Pattrice who receives it from me. Please circulate the name of Ali Ali is in a bed in Al Kindi hospital in Baghdad. Two houses were hit by a Bush missile and the fires burned alive 12 members of his family (mother, father, all the brothers, and other relatives). The sister of his mother is alive as she was not there, and she is now all the time with him. He is fully conscious. He has no more arms, and a black burned belly. Seeing Ali means that for all your life you will not get his image out of your head. He is 12 years old. He is so handsome with big eyes, and that makes a huge contrast with what remains of him. The rest of him is devastated and, if he survives, he will have to do with that for all his life. See: his two arms were burned like two branches of a tree in a fire, and were amputated very high near the shoulders. His belly and stomach are completely black burned; the sheets cannot touch him of course, so something like a wooden bridge is put under the sheets to keep it far from him... Every day the doctors remove a part of the skin and replace with some skin from the legs. But that means a high risk of infections. As the doctors said I would not disturb him, but that his image would disturb me, I choose to enter anyway to meet him (and it is true that his image disturbs me all the time now). I thought, "I want to meet his eyes... will I be able to give him some love and energy?" I think that was not the result, but the result is that now my mission is to make his symbolic case out out out of Iraq. I wish someone would be able to reach any American soldier in Iraq with his case. I told him Salaam Aleicum and he answered politely. I just looked at him. He many times looks at his gone arms and that is why I told the doctor to tell him that he after the war will have new arms from Italy, artificial ones very good. I don't know if that helped; his Aunty said Inshallah. The doctor Muftaz, who is wonderful as are many doctors here -- they are so dedicated and so astonished by Bush's aims -- translated and also very kindly tried to distract Ali's attention by telling him about Italy, shape of a boot and he said yes, he knows about Italy. But I found so ridiculous to tell a child about artificial arms...How can it help him? What to tell him that could make any difference to his condition? Ali is asking all the time about his mother and father and family. The doctors tell him that they have broken legs they are in another hospital and they cannot come right now. Doctor Muftaz says that Ali is very brave, he does not complain very much about his pain but he is always looking at his moving pieces of arms and his black belly. At least they have up to now enough analgesics but they don't yet give the strong ones like morphine because he may need it for the future when the pain will become more intense. But I heard that in hospitals in other cities there is already a shortage of supplies due to the number of injured, and imagine what happens to the children like Ali there. When we walked up in the corridor of the hospital we met a man Jihad Said Obeid who was coming from Al Suera, a place about 180 km away from Baghdad. He had a relative in that hospital but on March 30th it was hit by pieces of missile which aimed to destroy the nearby telecommunication center. He knows one person who died from that. It is against Geneva convention both to bomb a telecommunication center (not a military target) and to bomb it if there is a chance to hit an hospital nearby. One more war crime among many here. All these things are against Geneva Convention for the protection of civilians. When we just got out of Ali's room, in the "garden" of the hospital, we saw an old lady crying under her black dress. Telib, the Iraqi who accompanies us, asked what happened. The lady was crying because few hours before a missile hit near Mustansirya University and killed her daughter, who was a bride. Marinella Correggia Italian peace activist Iraq Peace Team Baghdad, April 4th, 2003 <END> _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. 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