What Happened to Riverbend of Baghdad Burning? I looked through

[alfredo]

Google, nothing new. She was the voice of the Iraqi people. She was the one that made it real for us. She showed us it was real people being hurt by this horrific war. Where is she? Is she OK? If anything happened to her, it will be the end of hope for Iraq in many of our minds. As long as she lived, there seemed to be a chance that things will be alright, that Iraq will emerge as a civil society.

For many of us, she was our only attachment to the war. We have had little chance to know the people of Iraq. We see them running in horror from the latest bombing. We see them pulling the dead from twisted metal. We see them cowering as troops search their homes. They are mere images, Riverbend gave us the words. She told us what life was like, what the people were like. Without her voice, we lose touch with the reality of Iraq.

Let's hope she is alive and safe. She could be in a refugee camp. We don't know. Keep your eyes and ears open.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. I've wondered that myself.

I hope that she is all right. Or that maybe she got out.

[Selatius]

2. As Michael Ware said, Baghdad has been ethnically cleansed.

Most Shias and Sunnis live in enclaves segregated from each other now. Mixed communities have long since been emptied out or "cleansed."

[alfredo]

8. But within those cleansed areas are militias battling for supremacy.

[Selatius]

12. Which illustrates my point; there's nothing living there except combatants.

If you were a civilian in those contested parts of the city, you'd be insane to stay. Either you've been uprooted and forced to flee, or you're already dead. There's very little room in between the two.

[alfredo]

13. There's probably a few who have no place else to go, or have such

strong bonds to their plot of land they'd rather die than leave. Of course if they are not of the same religion or tribe as the ruling militia, then they will die sooner or later.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I think of her often and hope she was able to escape with her family.

With the low amount of time these people have electricity, she may not be able to link on. I miss her writings and hope she appears to tell us what is going on, since we don't seem to get much of the truth from anywhere else. I was especially hoping she would reappear before the "report" came out in September, tooting their horns about how great everything is in Iraq. I'd believe her before I'd believe our administration.

[alfredo]

11. We need voices like hers to inform us of the human toll of bush's war.

[rodeodance]

4. She and her family left Iraq as far as I know (her last post).

[alfredo]

5. That's what I read, but we don't know if they succeeded.

[11cents]

6. I'm sure they did.

Millions of Iraqis have left; I'm sure this well-to-do family succeeded.

[alfredo]

7. There's so many variables, so much randomness to the violence.

They may have run out of money before they made it to the border. Refugees are shaken down at every turn.

[leftchick]

9. she said she and her family were leaving Iraq

for Syria I believe.

[alfredo]

10. She could be stuck in some hell hole refugee camp.