[Media-watch] The Children of Iraq Part 1

[David McKnight]

>From Helen Williams in Amman

David
 
 
 
youthaidiraq at hotmail.com

Hi                                                                Amman  10 
December 2004

Part One -The Children of Iraq

When the 'coalition of the willing' waged their dirty, illegal war on the 
long-suffering people of Iraq, they attacked a country where around half the 
population are aged under 18 years - it was, in effect, as if they were 
bombing a giant schoolyard.
The children of Iraq, most of them only knowing a life under sanctions, are 
now used to the sights and sounds of war - bombs, gunfire, soldiers, tanks, 
humvees, checkpoints, helicopters, concrete blast blocks and razor wire are 
all seen everywhere everyday. The same helicopters, humvees and more bombs 
and gunfire interrupt their sleep nightly. This is the norm for these 
children. Would you want this to be the norm for your children?
To most Iraqi children the sight of a dead body, blood, bombed buildings or 
maimed people is nothing special. The effect this has on them differs from 
child to child.
I have returned home 6 hours after a roadside bomb went off outside the 
appartment to find my neighbours' children - Hamsa and Ayar, amongst others 
- playing happily and giggling. They, just hours before, saw two dead bodies 
lying bloodied and mutilated in their own street. But play continues. Would 
this happen with the children if a bomb went off in your neighbourhood?

Most Iraqi children don't have any toys. Those that do will almost certainly 
have a toy version of some sort of weapon - usually a toy AK47, but perhaps 
a toy pistol, or a toy tank, or maybe even a toy military helicopter. I 
cannot count how many times a toy gun has been pointed at me in playful 
delight by the children of Iraqi friends. Of course, when the trigger is 
pulled I have to feign a slow, tortured death to the squeals of laughter of 
the gun wielding child. I hate doing this, especially if I am then handed 
the gun to do the same back. It upsets my very soul to play such a horrible 
game. But I only protest a little - this is Iraq, not Wales and taking the 
moral high ground on such issues is not only difficlt, it is nigh 
impossible. Anyway, I think it is more important to make the children laugh. 
But it is so difficult for me to do. I know too many vegan and peace 
activist friends who would never let thier children play with anything more 
representatively deadly than a water pistol and I know, if I had children, I 
would certainly take the same stand as them on the issue.
The market toy stands up on Saduun Street are littered with such items and 
they are very cheap. Military helicopters which light up and whirr, tanks 
which race across the floor like toy cars - they are all there in a macabre 
toy collection representing war and death - the norm.

Seeing guns in the family home is also the norm. Most homes have an AK47 or 
maybe a pistol for home protection. Thankfully these guns are usually only 
brought out for celebratory events such as weddings or victorious football 
matches, but it all adds to the acceptance of guns as part of life and 
children see and learn this young in Iraq.

A year ago I attended a lecture in Iraq which estimated the amount of Iraqi 
children suffering from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) to be a 
staggering 50% and it is sure to be more than that now. The same lecturer 
told how the number of child psychiatrists in Iraq was woefully low - 
virtually zero in a heavily traumatised country.

In a mentally worn out society, few Iraqis discuss their personal suffering 
with each other.
'Abu Ali' just does not bother telling 'Abu Mohammed' about the death or 
injury of loved ones in the war, about his house windows or car being 
damaged in a roadside bomb, or what the electricity cuts are doing to his 
business. What's the point? 'Abu Mohammed' has probably been through the 
same, maybe even worse. (Although it has to be said that many Iraqis will 
tell outsiders of their experiences/opinions/troubles).
But often this silent suffering is seen in the children, who sometimes seem 
barely effected by horrors they have endured.
I have told you about Noor and Ammar before.
I met Noor in a friend's office with her father. She is an effervescent, 
chatty, confident 12 year old girl. Clearly very intelligent - when I asked 
her about school she was proud to inform me that she was top of her year. 
When asked if she had any brothers or sisters, she replied "Just one 
sister". She went on to say that her two brothers had been killed in the war 
while defending their country -one at Kut, the other at Mussayib, near 
Hilla. She continued that later in the year, during Ramadan, her mother had 
died of a broken heart. It is hard to imagine how anyone, let alone a 12 
year old girl, could cope with such personal, devasting tragedy. But here 
was Noor recounting events as if she were detailing a school outing.

Ammar, in the National Theatre, was the same. Dancing joyfully to music, 
wearing a 'Gap' t-shirt and waving a red Communist Party flag, I could not 
resist taking a photo of this happy youngster. Photo taken, he came and sat 
by us - he had made new friends. When he discovered that I was not American, 
he apologised profusely to my translator. He hates Americans.
During the fall of Bagdad in April 2003, his 5 year old brother had been 
shot and murdered by American soldiers as the Iraqi Army had retreated 
across Oqaba Square, near the family home. The family, unable to leave the 
house that day due to the heavy bombardment, had found the body of their 
poor little son and brother lying dead in the street the next day. Ammar 
told us how his mother was still griefstricken. She had been so happy to 
give birth to son as a brother for Ammar 5 years earlier.
He told us of this horror with unflinching reserve. When he finished, he was 
up out of his seat and dancing again - you would never know his sadness to 
see him dancing like this.

One of 'our' boys, Ahmed, 12, never told me how much aeroplanes and 
helicopters bothered him. One night  I was leaving the boys' home in Al 
Wazerya and saying goodbye to him - he had come out to the road to see me 
off. A plane was flying quite high up overhead as I turned around to Ahmed. 
He quickly removed his hands from his ears and looked embarrassed. I 
crouched down before him and asked why he did this. With his broken English 
he shyly explained that all the planes frighten him, he doesn't like the 
noise. All I could do was cuddle him.
Noor does not like the helicopters, well, neither do the adults. But I have 
seen too many chilldren, including teenagers, cover their ears at the sounds 
of any planes or helicopters, remembering what terror and death they brought 
to their homes during the war.

Hasan, our good friend, Abu Ali's, 13 year old son, seems to hide his trauma 
well. Living in Zafarania, Bagdad, this child had seen and heard a fair 
amount of bombing during the war.
Hasan has always been sickly and was about the size of an 8 year old. Abu 
Ali suspected that Hasan's sickness was due to exposure to chemical weapons 
that he himself had been subject to during the Iran/Iraq War. He had 
returned contaminated by the chemical warfare and his wife had become 
pregnant. Hasan had been born requiring constant medical treatment and blood 
donations.
The doctors now say Hasan's physical health is improving day by day. His 
mental health, however, is worrying. Although always ill, he was a happy, 
chatty, outgoing child before the war. Now he is very different. When I 
visited the family home of Abu Ali, I was at first regarded with suspicion 
by Hasan, although he soon relaxed with me in the room with the family. But 
he is a quiet, withdrawn boy, clearly troubled, sullen, almost sulky, though 
obedient.
He was just starting to do well physically when the war came along, which 
now certainly seems to have caused him a different set of problems.

Abul Azziz's brother, Ibrahim, 5, used to go up to American soldiers to say 
hello. After Abdul Azziz's leg was lost after an American soldier shot at 
him for no reason whatsoever, Ibrahim's attitude to soldiers changed 
drastically. Now, if he sees soldiers, he shouts swear words in English at 
them. (Many Iraqi children who know no English at all know the rude words - 
care of the fowl mouthed US troops.)
Once his mum caught and stopped him trying to throw stones at the soldiers - 
she was terrified they would shoot him and claim they thought he was 
throwing a grenade. One day Ibrahim was found pulling some old car tyres 
around the front yard. When asked what he was doing, he replied that he was 
collecting bombs to throw at the American Army.
I have visited Abdul Azziz's family several times and they are just lovely. 
Ibrahim is always concerned about my white face for a while in case I am 
American. Indeed, the first time I was there, it took him around 2 hours to 
smile at me. But he is a beautiful little thing and when he calms down he is 
really funny and loving. Now he cuddles up to me, usually after a 
clothes-changing extravaganza, when he spends around an hour putting on 
different sets of clothes to show off. This little fashion show features all 
styles, from dishdasha to shorts and t-shirt. But his mind is well and 
truely disturbed. And even though he is lucky enough to have a strong and 
loving family around him, I fear he will grow up so angry and resentful.
Abdul Azziz's sisters, aged from 8 to 18 years, are also mentally anguished. 
Raghad, just 8 years, cannot fall asleep without holding her mother's hand, 
all have regular bad dreams and Ekbal, 15, with dark sad eyes, won't imagine 
what the future may hold incase she dies tomorrow. Whenever Ekbal sees an 
American soldiers, she shouts "Don't shoot."

Then there is Ali, also 5, the youngest son of a family I visited in Hilla. 
As coaltion forces approached their neighbourhood in Hilla at the end of 
March 2003, the sounds of bombing and aircraft and tankfire became louder 
and louder as it got nearer and nearer to their house in a residential 
suburb of the city. On 1st April they were awoken in the early hours, the 
fighting was so close now, and their house was shaking all over with each 
terrifying blast. The Iraqi Army were attempting to defend Hilla from the 
main road near the houses. The family got up and decided to leave to the 
countryside just hours before the whole residential neighbourhood was 
cluster bombed killing and mutilating hundreds. They hurried to a friend's 
farmhouse some 10 kilometres away, but having so narrowly escaped being 
cluster bombed in their home, they were to be cluster bombed here out in the 
countryside as a battle took place nearby.
The family, all physically unharmed, returned to their neighbourhood later 
that day to find their house badly damaged, all the windows shattered. About 
330 people in the area were killed. They felt grateful to be alive and 
unharmed.
Not long after this they started to see a change in Ali. He would loose his 
temper in terrible rages and tantrums and hit out at his mother, 4 sisters 
and 3 brothers. He would bully the little daughter of his older brother and 
often try to beat his mother. He would scream, shout and sulk and throw food 
around at meal times in fits of rage. When he awoke from sleeping he would 
start shouting and this incuded swearing and damning God. His mum and dad 
say he is naughty all the time he is awake, with more than 10 incidents 
daily. They do not know what to do with their desperately and heavily 
traumatised son.
The whole family may have survived the cluster bombs without even an injury, 
but how their lives have changed and what does the future hold for Ali and 
his terrible tantrums?

Then there are the child soldiers. These are not coerced, bullied, unwilling 
combatants such as those we hear of in Uganda or Sudan, for example, but 
youngsters who want to fight and defend thier homes and do so proudly and 
courageously.
I saw one boy, 11, in Fallujah, wrapped in a red yeshmack with his AK47, 
almost as big as him. I have detailed his astounding fighting skills in an 
earlier report. Although he is most definitely skilful and brave, I wonder 
what mental scars he will have to endure as he grows up. Indeed, I wonder if 
he is alive at all now after the recent annihilation of Fallujah.
I also met a small 15 year old boy driving his father's minibus as an 
ambulance, risking his young life to collect the dead and dying in the 
beseiged sniper-ridden city. What horrors has he witnessed to take with him 
through life? What horrors have all the children in Fallujah witnessed or 
had happen to them or loved ones?

There are many accounts of children fighting alongside older family members 
in Sadr City. Sadr City, the impoverished, mainly Shia area of Bagdad, has 
much more that the national average of around 50% under 18 years of age. 
These boy soldiers are eager to defend their neighbourhood against the 
unnecessary presence of the US Army in their area.
A friend from Sadr City told me of one 8 year old whose favoured weapon was 
an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) - how on Earth does an 8 year old fire an 
RPG - well, apparantly quite well, by all accounts.

Nargy,9, lives in Kufa Mosque. I met this little fellow on our tragic 
humanitarian mission there in August. He is an orphan, no one quite knows 
what happened to his parents, but he was a delight and everybody made a huge 
fuss of him. He absolutely loves the Mahdi Army guys and, of course, hated 
the Americans. Although not actually a child soldier, he used to hand 
bullets to the fighters and told us that he wanted to fight for Moqtada to 
drive the Americans out of Iraq. He also told us that he wanted to die as a 
martyr. It is just so sad. Nargy is surrounded by love, kindness and 
attention, but look what the war and occupation have done to his mind. I 
don't even know if the child still lives - one week after our visit there 
the mosque was attacked by 2 US rockets and many were killed and injured.

All these child soldiers are sure to suffer from some sort of PTSD in the 
future - that is if they survive the ongoing brutal occupation.

To be continued ...

All for now
Helen Williams
Amman  Jordan


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