It was Wednesday February 13^th, 1991 at 4:20am in Baghdad time. A time that thousands of Iraqi people can not forget. The first bomb dug a small hole in the thick ceiling of the shelter. And the 1000Kg steel door was automatically shut as it was programmed to protect the people inside from effects of bombs outside. But this time, it protected the world from witnessing the most brutal crime of all times.

The second 2000 pounds-bomb found its way through to the ground floor of the shelter where about 1000 people were sleeping.

According to witnesses I talked to, the shelter was full of women and children and very old people. They used to go there every night because the shelter had electricity and water and because they thought they would be protected from the rapid bombing of American airplanes daily. This time, they were not.

After the second bomb with the steel head penetrated the ceiling, it exploded inside the shelter. Everything was on fire. And to be accurate, every one was on fire. No one could help them because the shelter was designed to prevent anything and everyone from getting into the shelter once it was shut.

People kept burning until the morning and until the turned to ashes.

At that morning, the entire world woke up safely and joyfully. A thousand people in Baghdad could not wake up. And few other thousands’ lives were never the same.

I’ll quote some of what the 6 survivors of this holocaust and few other witnesses said:

‘The sound of the explosion woke me up. I was looking around and all I saw was fire. I tried to protect my face with my hands and my chest with my legs. I did not know what to do. I thought that these are my last moment.’ A survivor said.

‘I thought it was just a dream. I thought that I will wake up soon and all this was just a dream.’ Another survivor said.

‘They killed my 16 year old son. They killed my daughter on her fifteenth birthday. I wish I was them. I wish I was with them.’ A mother of five kids whom were killed that day said.

‘I wish they died in a different way. I wish they did not feel the fire.’ Said a relative of a family who died that day.

‘I found her blanket. I even found her earrings. But I could not find her.’ Said a mother of a 12-year old girl who died that day.

A father of an infant who died that day said ‘My son was only 5 days old. I don’t even remember his face. I don’t have a photo of him. I can’t even proof that he ever existed.’

 
Only 314 bodies were found complete that day. The rest of the bodies were turn to dust or torn into small burned pieces. The evacuation of bodies took three days.

The American administration claimed that there was a meeting for high ranked Iraqi military personnel there. Although we saw non when we were evacuating the bodies, is this a good enough reason to take a thousand life ??

I lost five relatives in there. One of them was four moths old. We found him in his mother’s lap burnt to ashes. We could only recognize them from the wedding ring in his mother’s hand.

This is the ugliest face of war no matter what acheivments were made.

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