BAGHDAD, 30 March 2003 — Almost every house in Baghdad’s poor Al-Shuwaila neighborhood had a horror story to tell yesterday after death rained from the night sky. The United States said it was checking to see whether one of its missiles or bombs had caused the shattering explosion that killed at least 62 people on Friday evening in the heart of Baghdad.
For Baghdadis, it has been a bloody week that left scores of them killed or wounded. For military planners, it has been seven days that brought them face-to-face with the most tragic fact of war: civilian casualties. Authorities in Baghdad and eyewitnesses have laid the responsibility for these casualties squarely at the door of US and British forces.
At the house of Sumaya Abed, the scene was one of devastation. She was delirious with grief. “Ali, Hussein and Muhammad are gone. My three boys are dead,” a sobbing Sumaya repeated over and over again.
Shacks at the crowded neighborhood’s tiny market were torn into pieces of shattered wood and twisted metal. The smell from broken sewers mixed with the odor of rotting fruit and charred human remains. People described horror scenes of dismembered bodies littering the streets.
In another bereaved household nearby, Arouba Khodeir, 39, was wailing hysterically and hitting herself in the face and chest, as women around her were trying to calm her down. Her son Karar, 11, died outside the house with his friends. “My son had his head blown off,” screamed Khodeir. “Why are they hitting the people? Why are they killing the children? Why are they doing this to us?” she wailed, pointing at the dried blood of her son still splashed on the walls. One harrowing story was told at the house of Hasna Shallum where women had gathered to mourn the death of her 20-year-old daughter Shaza. Shaza was holding her baby and walking with two relatives when the explosion sent a shard of shrapnel through her neck.
