I received an email from Sahab bringing my attention to Al-Amiriya: The Shelter.
Sahab, for those who still don't know is one of few committed and honorable people around documenting and showing the truth about atrocities too place against the Iraqi people, focusing on the shelters of death, one of these shelters is Al Amiriya - first time I wrote about this tragedy was last year, then I wrote about the interview Al Baghdadia channel conducted with families of victims.
The documentary is made by Siham Jouhari, a French flim maker of Morrocan origin, known for the award winning short movie “Faces of wrath”, about the war on Gaza in 2009.
I took a look at the website but could not find any news or a source to the movie.
This is the slogan the families of the victims of Al Amiriya shelter in Baghdad during a live coverage from the bunker itself by Al Baghdadia satellite channel a couple of days ago to commemorate the victims of that criminal act during the 1991.
There were interviews with families of the victims and other people living in the surrounding area of the shelter – one of them told the story how he heard the first blast and after the second he ran towards the shelter, went to the second floor and saw people in flames screaming for help. Another told of his son who was in the shelter when it happened, the father went inside and saw his son, he was 12 years old then rapped in a blanket, his body was burned from toe to head, the whole flesh was eaten by the fire.
The families of the victims, old and young men and women appealed to the Iraqi government to re-open the shelter to public, which was closed in 2003 after the US occupation of Iraq. They called for effort and work on rebuilding the site and to make it a museum for others to see and remember those men, women, children and elderly people their lives were taken without purpose, and reason.
Some families were puzzled with the fact that human life is precious in many countries, taking an example of the terrorist attack on PAN AM flight in 1988, and they asked for justice, a similar fairness in assessing the altitude of this tragedy .
I was surprised to know from that live coverage that the US forces entered the shelter in 2003, torn up the pictures of victims hanging on walls, stepped on some of them with their boots and even sprayed their machine guns on the walls.
While I was watching, it crossed my mind many places I visited in the past in Europe to commemorate the victims of World War I and II, not to forget Hitler’s victims e.g. Auschwitz.
Would be wrong if Al Amiriya shelter be included as part of UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites? Maybe not! It is not the Pyramids.
It all goes back to one concept: how valuable those who died to their own people in order to make others from other countries acknowledge their rights, for justice.
A couple of days ago, Iraqis recalled one of the darkest moments in their country's history when two GBU-27 laser-guided bombs were dropped by stealth fighter planes on Al Amiriya shelter in Baghdad, at about 4 a.m. on Feb. 13, 1991. This resulted in more than 400 men, women and children burned to death. It has been said that the children were asked by their parents to keep on watching cartoons so they won't be afraid.
The first missile cut through ten feet of reinforced concrete before a time-delayed fuse exploded. Minutes later the second bomb followed the path cut by the first bomb.The explosion inside the bunker pressed the bodies against walls and ceiling, caused a very high temperature., thus carbonizing both flesh and walls. When rescue began, there were bodies found pressed against walls, which were less carbonized. One clearly recognises shapes of bodies, faces, mothers holding children.
According to the U.S. officials at that time, it has been thought that the shelter was a command center. Some rumors were circulating at that time that Saddam Hussain himself and his commanders were hiding in that bunker. The White House, though, in a report titled Apparatus of Lies: Crafting Tragedy, stated then that US intelligence sources reported the blockhouse was being used for military command purposes. The report goes on to accuse the Iraqi government of deliberately keeping "select civilians" in a military facility at Amiriyah. However, Jeremy Bowen, a BBC correspondent, was one of the first television reporters on the scene after the blast. Bowen was given access to the site and confirmed that no evidence of military use (report aired the next day on BBC1).
The shelter now is considered as a shrine where pictures of the dead babies, women and children hanging can be seen. However, many of the traces of that massacare can be seen in different spots.
Many things have been written on Al Amiriya Shelter, such as the article written by Ali Asadullah in 2000, or Ibrahim Alloush's article in 2002, or how Ramzy Baroud's called it the chamber of horror in his article in 2003. However, there is a exclusive blog (in Arabic and English) on the tragedy, can found here to commemorate the victims of Al Amiriya Shelter. It is by a blogger under the name Sahab, who also created another blog about the children from al Hanan orphanage. It contains many pictures and videos, in addition to eye witnesses and interviews with people concerning this genocide. In addition, in 2001 a research center has been established in Madrid, Spain named after the doomed site i.e. Al Amiriya Center for Documentation and International Initiatives, that deals with the autrocities committed by U.S. forces during that war (they seems to fail to foresee the future and the events followed 2003 and until now).
God bless the souls of Al Amiriya Shelter vicitims, and may they rest in peace, forever and ever.
I received an email from Sahab bringing my attention to Al-Amiriya: The Shelter.
