Children pay price of US offensive

[justinsb]

Children pay price of US offensive

Twelve years old and still deeply in shock, he can barely speak.

Ala's family had fled the Iraqi city of Falluja before last Monday's all-out offensive began. He was happily playing with his brother in the garden of their uncle's house in a village outside the city. Then the rocket hit.

"My uncle died. They took us to hospital," he mumbles, speaking in little more than a whisper.

His brother lies face down on the bed next to him, a bandage around his leg, a tube feeding into his stomach.

Their mother sits on another bed, cradling her now fatherless two-year-old nephew.

Across the room, another two-year-old lies on a bed in a nappy, a blanket covering one tiny leg. The other one was blown off by a shell.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/110BB55F-6635-4F73-A470-FE1DF9D8ED41.htm