Nobody ever expected the way that Saddam Hussein's regime was going to end, was going to be like this.
In our worst expectations we thought that the battle for Baghdad was going to last a pretty long time, before the coalition forces could invade it. Some people said that we were going to face a new Leningrad or a "Baghdadgrad"!
Suddenly, not just in Baghdad but also in Mosul and other parts of the country, all the big Bath party members, security men, guards, and the fidayeen all disappeared.
That was in the 9th of April. We all wondered, where are those silly security men who always tell us stupid things?
Like digging a hole in the hospital's garden (5 meters long, 1 meter width and 1 meter deep) and then force us to go down into during air strikes, claiming that it would help to protect us from Biochemical or Nuclear weapons?! So where have all these guys have gone?
We started to realize that the regime was collapsing then. We might become a target for looters, coalition forces or Kurdish militias (peshmarga). So we made our own emergency plan.
We appointed new security men and guards. But all were unarmed. Also we asked the whole medical team not to leave the hospital because if we did so, the hospital was going to be robbed.
At about 1:00 am the next day, and as I was in the emergency room, about 10 armed men entered the main door of the hospital, and headed toward my room.
At first we thought that these were looters, but they said that they belonged to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and they were not going to harm anybody if we gave them the keys of the cars in the garage (most of the cars are ambulances, buses, and Nissan Patrols used to carry hospital employees to hospital, in addition to some cars belonging to patients).
He threatened me with his gun to get the keys, but I refused to do so and told him to see our manager (who was so brave and stayed with us during the critical period).
The manager gave them the keys, and then they asked us to break all of Saddam's pictures in the hospital (which were many), and to put a green flag on the hospital to indicate that this hospital belongs to the PUK. Then they left.
A few hours later another group of armed men was surrounding the hospital saying that we needed to put a yellow flag (which belongs to the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, DPK). So we put up another flag. I started to laugh, asking myself, what is going on?
On the next day, a carload full of armed men came inside the hospital trying to rob and steal. One of hospitals brave nurses brought pistols and AK-47 machineguns, and a real battle was going on near the hospital walls.
Three looters were shot dead, and the brave nurse was severely injured, but thank God, the looters left after that. The nurse survived. We went to the nearby mosque asking them for protection, and one hour after that, five armed men were sent to protect the hospital.
(Whole governmental institutes were being looted so the mosques started asking people to stop doing it. They made patrols to stop the looting, which were able to stop it to some extent.)
A week afterwards the coalition forces started to arrive and spread in to the city. We asked them to protect the hospital, and they did so.
You can see in the picture the hospital after they came. A new era for the Iraqi history was showing up on the horizon.
Yahya
 | | | The coalition forces arrive at the hospital |
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