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4-year-old
Baqer was hit in the head with a 9mm bullet.
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It
was ten-year-old Saif who alerted Jo Wilding to the tragedy.
Wilding, a recently qualified barrister, was in Iraq before and
during the invasion and then returned in November to document
disasters and civil rights abuses, and to take part in a
traveling circus - an attempt to bring some laughter and
normality in the most abnormal of situations.*
Wilding
is a natural clown. Last March, she and this writer attempted to
gain entry to the then still deserted British Embassy, empty
since the last British Ambassador, Sir Harold Walker, fled down
the Jordan road ahead of the 1991 bombs, in such a hurry that,
in a near unique diplomatic blunder, he failed to hand in his
credentials to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. Ever since, he has
graced television studios at every opportunity, from the safety
of several thousand miles distance, advocating bombing again.
The
deserted Embassy would be sure to provide a story, I thought.
The courteous young Iraqi soldiers who had guarded it and tended
the gardens and building for over a decade were in a quandary.
Finally, their superior was called. He was very sorry, but no
one was allowed in; they had a duty to keep it safe and were
under strict instructions: no visitors. By that time several
dozen children had gathered (strange foreigners are always a
draw in isolated Iraq) and then followed us as we explored the
street behind the Embassy with its evocative ancient houses in
which they lived.
Suddenly
Wilding dropped to her knees. In an instant she became a tiger,
leaping towards them, mock-growling, pretending to attempt to
catch them, then a cat, then a lion. The repertoire was
stunning, and on the eve of war, destruction and terror - after
the isolation and deprivation of an embargo that had snatched
away their very childhood - they laughed, shrieked with delight,
and ran towards her and away from her. It was a memorable,
spontaneous, complete joy. Finally the soldiers who had followed
us, presumably wondering if we were going to attempt to scale
the Embassy wall (it had occurred to us, it has to be said) from
the back, torn between laughter and complete bemusement, asked
us to leave.
The
children followed us to the battered car, tugging at Jo,
giggling and begging her to do it all again - and she did,
becoming a veritable menagerie of exotic creatures. The
soldiers, now completely drawn in, barely older than children
themselves, finally reluctantly called time up and asked us
politely to leave. We drove off, watching the little knot of
laughing children in the road waving us on our way. Are they all
alive now? - which is why Jo went back, to record, witness and
bring some laughter. She witnesses more than most could ever
bear, and then becomes a clown in the circus. By the way, when
the British took over the Embassy again, after last year’s
invasion, the first thing they did was to sack the soldiers who
had guarded it so faithfully for thirteen years.
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British
activist Jo Wilding was in Iraq before and during the
invasion; then she returned in November.
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Saif
has been working as a fixer, shoe shiner, and guide, since he
was four. Iraq’s enchanting, often feral little street
children, who started to appear about four years into the
embargo, are a near forgotten tragedy. The Education Ministry
that had previously fined parents whose children did not attend
school realized the desperation afflicting families and changed
the schooling system to “shifts,” to accommodate their
working hours. But many were simply too tired to attend. Saif
never seems tired and never attended. He simply adopts
foreigners. “Madam, you looking for something? You lost your
way? I help,” and a little hand slips into yours and you are
enchanted. He is a child man, old beyond his years, yet still
utterly vulnerable. It was inevitable he would adopt Jo, the
world’s wisest clown. They were meant for each other.
It
was Saif’s request that she meet his neighbor who had a
problem; that introduced Jo to the boy with the bullet in his
brain. On May 26 last year, four-and-a-half-year-old Baqer was
waiting with his family for a taxi, to visit relatives. There
was an explosion; US troops started shooting and Baqer was hit
in the head with a 9mm bullet. “He has suffered injuries to
the left cerebrum, his left 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th cranial
nerves, causing partial nerve palsy... impairing his sight,
hearing speech and walking. When he tries to get off someone’s
lap, he lists, staggers and falls over,” says Wilding.
“Madam,
you looking for something? You lost your way? I help,” and a
little hand slips into yours. |
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The
family live in Sadr City/Al-Thawra City (formerly known as
Saddam City), a vast, rambling, very poor area of Baghdad. In
spite of their poverty, the family have taken Baqer to doctor
after doctor, sold all they had, and now live in a home “bare
but for rugs on the floor, a single bulb and a lamp which takes
over when the electricity goes out, which seems to be [the
situation] most of the time.” Further, they are now unable to
fill the prescriptions they are given, since health care is no
longer free. “If the bullet migrates it could encroach on his
brain stem. In any visible deterioration the family must take
him to Jordan” - a now very dangerous journey and always
grueling (from ten to twenty hours by road), even for the
fittest.
Baqer’s
father, Ali, has had to give up his job to take Baqer on the
rounds of hospitals in a looking glass world of prescriptions he
cannot afford to fill and surgeons with the ability, but not the
facilities, to operate. The advice to go to Jordan is
meaningless; with what will they pay?
“There
is no dispute that US soldiers were responsible, that it is a US
bullet in his head. There is also no knowing how many more
families and individuals are going through similar struggles,
trying to find money for medical care, trying to get the forces
responsible to give the financial help they promised,” says
Wilding, a barrister now - the clown all together eclipsed.
“Congressmen and women, [and] MPs must be approached. Contact
Bush and Blair and use powers of creative mischief making to
ensure this happens.”
The
Coalition Provisional Authority promised to help with Baqer’s
treatment and medicines, “but has given them nothing, no
medicines, money, treatment or assistance with traveling out of
Iraq for treatment in Jordan or beyond. We need to demand
compensation and financial support from the forces responsible,
for all civilian victims. At the moment, the military
institution has complete impunity for what its soldiers do and
the soldiers have impunity within the military.” Listening to
Wilding I remembered again little Ali Abbas, whose arms were
blown off in another unfortunate incident involving the
military. Before he left Kuwait for treatment in the UK, the US
military presented him with a US military hat. No doubt in
military mind-set this was an honor. To the uninitiated, it was
crassness beyond belief.
Dr.
Peter d’Ambrumenil, Managing Director and Senior Flight
Surgeon of Britain’s flying hospital service Aeromedical is
committed do anything he can to help. “It is my opinion that
this child must be urgently assessed by an expert neurosurgery
team. The British or US military could facilitate his travel to
Riadh - the shortest journey, with excellent facilities, with
little trouble. With determination, he could be treated
within five days.”
Meanwhile,
there is a four-year-old with a bullet in his brain who needs a
neurosurgeon.
*
Jo Wilding was thrown out of Baghdad by the then Iraqi government in early April 2003 (BBC
News, April 2). Click here
to visit Wilding’s website.
Felicity
Arbuthnot is a freelance journalist who has visited Iraq
26 times since the 1991 Gulf War. She has written and broadcast
widely on Iraq and with former UN Co-ordinator in
Iraq and UN Under Secretary-General Denis Halliday. Arbuthnot was
Senior Researcher for John
Pilger’s award-winning documentary Paying the
Price - Killing the Children of Iraq.
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