BAGHDAD, Iraq: The sobs and cries of the grief-stricken filled the
air Thursday, mourning those children who were martyred when an SUV
exploded the day before in a crowd of Iraqi kids who had gathered to
accept candy, gifts and water from an American military patrol.
The attack claimed 32 children aged between 6 to 13 while wounded at
least 67 other children. A US soldier perished as well.
At the city's Kindi hospital, hundreds of distraught parents mingled
in blood-soaked hallways shouting and screaming as they looked for
their children, many of whom were badly mutilated.
Some of the dead children were taken to holy city of Najaf – home to
the holy shrine of Master of Believers Al-Imam Ali bin Abi Taleb (A) –
for burial.
A gaggle of boys who played soccer together in the eastern Baghdad
neighborhood are gone. 10-year-old twin is without his other half.
One whole family disappeared, their home destroyed by a suicide blast.
In every home for blocks Thursday, distraught parents said that at
least one child was dead.
Doors of homes opened, offering glimpses of a sea of women in
traditional black gowns crying together inside as little girls passed
precious cold drinking water to their guests. Christian, Shia Muslim
and Sunni Muslim women sat cross-legged throughout the neighborhood,
calling for their dead sons and daughters.
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A coffin was tied to the top of a van. Women screamed inside the
vehicle, while a father hysterically called, “My son, my son!”
Some men lined up in funeral tents near the bombing's 10-foot-crater.
Karima Jameel Sabri's two sons aged 5 and 8 years were also among
those dead. She scratched her face until it bled, and beat her chest.
The new tracksuit her elder son was wearing had burned away, his arms
and legs were gone and his face was unrecognizable.
But a mother knows. Only he had the small birthmark at the back of his
head, perfect little teeth and purple underwear.
“There is fire in my heart, oh mother,” she screamed and slapped her
face. “They'd been kissing me in the morning, my two boys.”
“Where shall I find my sons?” she cried.
Across the street, a woman with disheveled blond hair sat beneath
portraits of Prophet Isa and his mother Mary. Faisa Emmanuel Michael's
eyes were tired and her face red from crying.
All day and night Wednesday, she had searched for her 10-year-old son,
Yousef Adel Saleem, among the charred body parts, scattered children's
slippers and burned remnants of the SUV. She wandered the bloodstained
pavement until 4 a.m. She checked the hospitals.
“I wish I could see him and bury him,” she said. “Then I can rest.”
At a home nearby, two women who live together had lost their sons. One
sat stunned, unable to rid herself of the image of her child's burned
face. She had identified him by his rounded fingernail. Next to her,
another woman screamed, “Oh mother, where is my son? Where is my son?”
Her only child was gone, too.
The grief stretched all the way to the southern holy city of Najaf,
where 12 children were taken to be buried.
A woman kissed the sands that covered her 7-year-old son's wooden
coffin. The family of five had driven more than two hours to bury him
near the grave of Imam Ali (A).
