Saving Ali -- Where US snipers fire at ambulances

[scarletwoman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1205665,00.html

It was when I saw little Ali's ruined body that I stopped being just a reporter and became a true embed. The scene was a makeshift field hospital in Falluja. A missile fired at the hospital has left the walls of the room Ali lies in pockmarked with shrapnel.

Glass crunches underfoot. Four-year-old Ali is lying in a cot, the mattress matted with dried blood. He is bleeding from a horrific groin wound and his left leg has been amputated above the knee. His left arm is bandaged and bleeding, his face badly cut. His father brushes away the flies buzzing around Ali's wounds. It is a scene of almost utter hopelessness.

Ali is one of the only survivors of an extended family, bombed the day before by a jet, probably an F-16. He might live, but only if he is evacuated to a Baghdad hospital within hours. Ambulances have tried to evacuate him and other seriously wounded casualties. They were turned back at US checkpoints by troops carrying out orders: no one in and no one out. There is one last hope: I got past the checkpoints with my press ID and my passport, and I could go back with Ali.

<snip>

I volunteered to ride in ambulances evacuating the wounded. Surely they don't shoot ambulances? In fact, US snipers were targeting ambulances. I learned to pick out the beams of sniper rifles.

(more at link...)

sw