NMV Youth Group - Boston
High school students in Boston are organizing an advocacy project for Shaymaa, a three-year-old girl who was paralyzed in the April 2004 seige of Fallujah. The students are completing a needs assessment, and conducting research into the current state of the medical care system in Fallujah. They have raised funds that will be delivered to help with Shaymaa's most pressing needs, and sent drawings and letters to Shaymaa that express their dedication to her welfare. They have also arranged for a wheelchair to be delivered to Shaymaa's home in Fallujah.
A Massacre That Left Agonies Behind
By Maki Al-Nazzal
At 10.00 pm on April 6 2004, four related families got together in a house they thought would be safer for their lives and children. Fate was hiding something other than safety for the unfortunate families as, while they were having late supper, a cluster bomb hit the main hall, where men were dining, and two missiles hit the inside rooms where women and children gathered together.
The catastrophe of the Dhahi house of the Julan District, Fallujah was something for the whole world to remember with sorrow and disgrace for failing to stop a war that was supposed to liberate people, not kill them in masses.
"I was one kilometer away from the place of the crime yelling 'save them, save them.' But nobody was able to approach the house until the savage bombardment stopped an hour and a half later," said grandfather Khamees. "It seems I was out of my mind wandering the empty streets of burning Fallujah to the extent that people thought I was mentally ill. By the time ambulances arrived, thirty one members of my family and relatives were dead and all the others were injured."
The families were preparing for a challenging wedding that was supposed to be conducted two days later despite the bombardment. They meant to send a message of life from the very heart of roaring death that was ravaging the streets of Fallujah. It seems that death's message was the winner as the bride was one of the victims.
Doctors who stayed in the city under severe US army attack remembered that tragic event with tears. They confirmed the killing of over thirty persons that night and the injury of many others with permanent disability of some. One of the wounded was the three month old girl Shaymaa whose father also got killed in the assault.
At the graveyard, the dead embraced each other for ever in a mass grave that became their new home. Seventeen children, eight women and six men were buried together the next morning in the graveyard that was once a soccer playing ground.
Grandfather Khamees complained to God from American doings. "Only Allah can help me and those who survived to live the sorrows of losing their beloved ones be patient. No human can help us forget that night and the dark days that followed. We are grateful to the neighbors, doctors and aid workers who risked their lives while attempting to rescue my family, but no thanks for Iraqi authorities and Americans who refused to admit their crime and offer any compensation to the remaining members of the families."
US army usually pays $2000 for each Iraqi killed by mistake, but refused to compensate those killed during the April assault on Fallujah and local courts only collect evidence, but at the final stages, the judge writes:"Allied Forces have immunity against any legal pursuance."
Shaymaa
A blondish brown wonderful looking girl received many fragments all over her body. Doctors removed all fragments except a tiny one in her back that was the reason for her everlasting misery. A tiny piece of a huge missile caused lovely Shaymaa to be paralyzed for the rest of her life while other pieces of the same missile succeeded to take her father away from her for good.
She now lives with her grandfather and who remained of his family in a small flat at the outskirts of Fallujah. She crawls around the small space around her, but suddenly cries for unknown reasons. Her speaking ability is limited to mama and papa and the functioning of her organs is disturbed because of her injury.
Thousands of children are suffering from agonies similar to that of Shaymaa and people all over the world are certainly responsible to offer what they can to support them and their families in any way possible. This is one of the ways they can prove their humanity.
