No wonder Ali Abed is crying. He's lost his wife, and his two year old son Hussein is scarcely conscious. There's been fighting for several days around here, and on Monday it came to Nader, the suburb where he lives.
"At 10 in the morning the fighter planes came over. All the people fled but where were we to go? There were battle fronts everywhere. The city was a battle front. The countryside was a battle front. Our relatives in the villages said don't come here, lots of people have been injured, we've been hit. The earth shook, and we were struck by shrapnel. My wife was killed right there, my nephew was injured. My son was injured. All of our neighbours were injured. It was terrible."
Hussein's injuries and those of others in the hospital appear to have been caused by cluster bombs.
Ali Abed said the bombs scattered cylinders like batteries, and not all of them exploded immediately.
Pain and shock. His hand has been amputated. he has shrapnel in the back of his thighs and serious injuries to both legs. According to the surgeons at the hospital, such wounds are typical of cluster bombs. The Americans were presumably aiming at soldiers fighting in the area, but the use of such weapons anywhere near a residential suburb is controversial to say the least.
Dr. Saad Al Fallujah FRCS
Chief surgeon, Hilla hospital:
"They said we throw clever bombs. Is the cluster bomb clever? Does it differentiate between the soldiers and the women, girls, boys, children? It doesn't differentiate. I feel angry. Very very angry."
Al Nader was not the only place hit. there's also been fighting in the village of Kifl twenty miles south.
Aziza Khadem:
"It was 4 in the morning. Everyone in Kifl was asleep. I heard the bombardment. People opened the doors and tried to get out. But then the bombardment came from all directions - artillery, tanks, soldiers. It hit the houses, and 5, 6, 20 people were killed. Then the planes went away. Where were the people to go? Wherever they could, they fled."
The Americans have accused the Iraqi military of bringing women and children into the battlefield. There must surely have been military casualties too. The Iraqis don't show us those. But the fact that the Iraqis want us to see injured civilians, and to blame the Americans, doesn't make it any less real or less terrible.
They've had so many casualties here in the hospital in Hilla, they've had to put extra beds here in the entrance hall, in the lobby. And the fighting's not over yet. As it gets closer to Baghdad, there are more
villages like this and the danger is that more civilians are going to be injured and killed.
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