Evacuation, U.S. Massacre at Fallujah

Hi everyone, here is the release I just finished. Now time to go home and
pack. The humanitarian orgs here are urgently appealing for a UN (NOT US
military) airlift, otherwise it's Royal Jordanian at big bucks. I don't
think a single humanitarian worker would have their dead body carried out
on a U.S. plane at this point, considering the army's absolute stupidity
this week.

not feeling too peaceful at the moment,
Le Anne

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Peace Worker Details Massacre in Fallujah
by Le Anne Clausen

April 12, 2004

IRAQ—“U.S. Marine snipers are firing at everyone moving,” report
colleagues of CPT who returned Sunday from an overnight humanitarian
mission to Fallujah. Six international and six Iraqi peace volunteers
entered the city on Saturday, April 10 in a bus loaded with medical
supplies from agencies in Baghdad. The city has been under siege for the
past six days.

Hospital workers report 518 Iraqis killed by U.S. fire as of Sunday,
including at least 157 women and 146 children. Of the children, one
hundred are under age twelve and of those, 46 are under age five. More
than 1,200 have been wounded. The casualties continued to rise through
press time.

U.S. forces bombed and destroyed the main hospital in Fallujah earlier
this week. Medical staff opened a makeshift clinic in an area garage, but
the volunteers report there are no sanitary facilities there in which to
work. Aid is getting through, but the clinic needs more supplies, such as
blood donation and testing kits, tracheotomy kits, and Cesarean section
tools. There are neither anesthesia nor blankets in the medical center.

Exhausted doctors struggled to respond to the constant streams of wounded.
The volunteers saw several older women and two children arrive with
numerous gunshot wounds. The two children died. The volunteers saw one
man who was burned from head to foot, and another who was bleeding from
several wounds. The men reported being injured by a cluster bomb.

One of the volunteers accompanied an ambulance crew to pick up a woman who
was going into premature labor. On the way, U.S. snipers began firing at
the ambulance. The ambulance turned off its sirens, then its lights, but
the soldiers continued firing. The ambulance began backing away from the
soldiers, but they continued firing and blew out the vehicle’s tire. The
crew escaped without injury, but they were unable to reach the woman.

Elsewhere in Fallujah, Marines granted the volunteers permission to
evacuate wounded persons, women, children, and the elderly from houses. An officer added, “We’re going to begin ‘clearing’ the houses shortly.” When the volunteers
pressed for details, the officer explained that they would go from house to house to
pick up any men of fighting age and any weapons. They described men of fighting age as “anyone under 45.” Jo Wilding, one of the volunteers, later said, “not all men
are armed and not all want to fight. Still, they are trapped.”

The volunteers also retrieved bodies of Iraqis killed. One body of an
unarmed man lying face-down in the road had only a small bullet entry hole in his
back, but massive abdominal ‘exit’ wounds, indicative of high-velocity bullets.
When the volunteers turned the body over to reveal the wound, children in the
nearest house began screaming and crying “Baba! Baba! (Daddy! Daddy!)” The volunteers
loaded the body into a pickup truck and evacuated the wife and children. The family
said their father had just stepped out of house when he was shot. The family had no
way to reach the body in the street before the volunteers secured permission from
the Marines.

The volunteer team recovered two additional bodies lying near a U.S.
checkpoint, but abandoned a completely burnt third body, due to outbursts of gunfire and the Marines' return fire. “We don’t know if that is friendly or hostile fire,
so we have to respond,” the soldiers said.

On Sunday, the volunteers returned to Baghdad with fourteen wounded people. As they passed the checkpoint out of Fallujah, they saw long lines of people
waiting to flee. The volunteers hope to return, although deteriorating conditions
within the city may prevent them from carrying out further work.

“This was a massacre,” said Wilding, “and it will get worse.”