Red Cross Horrified by Number of Dead Civilians

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Red Cross Horrified by Number of Dead Civilians

Canadian Press

 

http://truthout.org/docs_03/040603A.shtml

 

Friday 4 April 2003

 

OTTAWA — Red Cross doctors who visited

southern Iraq this week saw " incredible " levels

of civilian casualties including a truckload of

dismembered women and children, a

spokesman said Thursday from Baghdad.

 

Roland Huguenin, one of six International Red

Cross workers in the Iraqi capital, said doctors

were horrified by the casualties they found in

the hospital in Hilla, about 160 kilometres

south of Baghdad.

 

" There has been an incredible number of

casualties with very, very serious wounds in

the region of Hilla, " Huguenin said in a interview

by satellite telephone.

 

" We saw that a truck was delivering dozens

of totally dismembered dead bodies of women

and children. It was an awful sight. It was really

very difficult to believe this was happening. "

 

Huguenin said the dead and injured in Hilla

came from the village of Nasiriyah, where there

has been heavy fighting between American

troops and Iraqi soldiers, and appeared to

be the result of " bombs, projectiles. "

 

" At this stage we cannot comment on the nature

of what happened exactly at that place . . . but it

was definitely a different pattern from what we

had seen in Basra or Baghdad.

 

" There will be investigations I am sure. "

 

Baghdad and Basra are coping relatively well

with the flow of wounded, said Huguenin,

estimating that Baghdad hospitals have been

getting about 100 wounded a day.

 

Most of the wounded in the two large cities have

suffered superficial shrapnel wounds, with only

about 15 per cent requiring internal surgery,

he said.

 

But the pattern in Hilla was completely different.

 

" In the case of Hilla, everybody had very serious

wounds and many, many of them small kids and

women. We had small toddlers of two or three

years of age who had lost their legs, their arms.

We have called this a horror. "

 

At least 400 people were taken to the Hilla hospital

over a period of two days, he said -- far beyond its

capacity.

 

" Doctors worked around the clock to do as

much as they could. They just had to manage,

that was all. "

 

The city is no longer accessible, he added.

 

Red Cross staff are also concerned about what

may be happening in other smaller centres south

of Baghdad.

 

" We do not know what is going on in Najaf and

Kabala. It has become physically impossible for

us to reach out to those cities because the

major road has become a zone of combat. "

 

The Red Cross was able to claim one significant

success this week: it played a key role in

re-establishing water supplies at Basra.

 

Power for a water-pumping station had been

accidentally knocked out in the attack on the city,

leaving about a million people without water.

Iraqi technicians couldn't reach the station to

repair it because it was under coalition control.

 

The Red Cross was able to negotiate safe passage

for a group of Iraqi engineers who crossed the fire

line and made repairs. Basra now has 90 per cent

of its normal water supply, said Huguenin.

 

Huguenin, a Swiss, is one of six international

Red Cross workers still in Baghdad. The team

includes two Canadians, Vatche Arslanian of

Oromocto, N.B., and Kassandra Vartell of Calgary.

 

The Red Cross expects the humanitarian crisis

in Iraq to grow and is calling for donations to

help cope. The Red Cross Web site is:

http://www.redcross.ca

 

http://truthout.org/docs_03/040603A.shtml