Monday, May 24, 2004
Violence Jolts the Still Fragile Democracy in Nigeria
A rash of sectarian clashes has left dead bodies in the green highlands of central Nigeria, prompted tens of thousands of Muslims and Christians to flee in opposite directions and thrown Africa's most populous nation into one of the most serious political crises since the restoration of democracy just five years ago.
The latest and most widely publicized carnage was carried out on two days early in May, when a Christian militia, armed with Kalashnikovs and clubs, stormed this Muslim market town and crushed it.
Two weeks after that attack, Yelwa is a blackened shell. Houses and shops are burned. Cooking pots litter the streets. The town's people are huddled miles away in makeshift camps. The handful left here are piling their belongings into the backs of big trucks and leaving. Among them is a mother named Adama Ali, who has waited in vain for news of her baby girl. The child was taken from her arms, she said, by the gang that attacked this town.
The death toll here is impossible to verify: it ranges from an official figure of 67 to residents' estimates of up to 10 times that number.
Whatever the number, the consequences are echoing across the country. Towns and villages here in Plateau State have become Christian-only or Muslim-only enclaves. Outside, in northern Nigeria, in the fabled, politically volatile town of Kano, Muslims have rioted in retaliation for the Yelwa killings; some 20,000 Christians have fled their homes.
What made the Yelwa incident such a lightning rod was its potential to inspire even more violent reprisals, and not just in Plateau. Fueled less by religious passions than by deep-seated rivalries over land and power, the attack here was among the most violent and best organized in a string of recurrent tit-for-tat clashes.
The first of those came over a single week in September 2001, when 1,000 people were killed in Christian-Muslim violence in the state capital, Jos. The next year, Christian farmers slaughtered the cattle of Muslim herders, prompting a brutal attack on a cluster of Christian villages. In February of this year, Muslim youths attacked a Christian hamlet next to Yelwa. A few days later, a church in Yelwa was set ablaze, killing dozens inside, including the pastor. There are many other stories like those.
Then, on Tuesday, apparently in retaliation for the attack on Muslims in Yelwa, Muslim gangs set upon four Christian villages. In a familiar exodus, women and children marched along the highway this afternoon, heading north, balancing their worldly goods on their heads. Others piled into cars, with sleeping mats and bicycles strapped behind.
An elderly woman, feeble and dazed, sat on the side of the road under the midday sun. The woman, Rahuta Nicodemus, said she had fled her village of Sabon Gida so quickly that she forgot to bring even taxi money. Her husband, an old blind man, simply sat in front of their house, she said, refusing to budge. She heard later that he had been killed on the spot.
Along the road, opposite where Mrs. Nicodemus sat, small groups of young men walked up and down, with clubs and knives in hand; one held a bow and arrow.
...
Competition for political power has hardened ethnic and religious divides. As land has become scarcer, feuds between farmers and cattle herders have turned deadly. Grievances have intensified between those who claim to be indigenous to the land and others whom they describe as settlers.
The feuds are exacerbated by other fault lines. The people who call themselves indigenous to this region are mostly Christians, from a host of small ethnic groups. Those they tag as settlers are mostly Muslims from the Hausa and Fulani tribes, whose ancestors came from the north beginning 100 years ago. The indigenous people tend to be farmers; the settlers are usually cattle herders and traders.
...
On Sept. 7, 2001, a fight broke out when a Christian woman tried to walk through a Muslim congregation assembled on the street for Friday Prayer. During the next four days, 1,000 people were killed.
The violence did not end. It spiraled across the state. Some of the incidents started off with Muslim herders accusing Christian farmers of stealing cattle. Others were set off by farmers accusing herders of deliberately sending cattle to trample their cornfields.
Hostilities heated up earlier this year, when Fulani herders angered by cattle theft razed a cluster of mostly Christian farming villages. Saleh Bayeri, the blustery assistant secretary of the Fulani cattlemen's association, freely admitted that the Fulani raised money, bought guns and hired mercenaries from surrounding states. They went in with the intention of retrieving stolen cattle but ended up blasting away the villages and leaving several dead, including policemen who tried to intervene. "You know the Fulani man believes in vengeance," Mr. Bayeri said with relish. "There's no way you kill a Fulani man's cattle and he will not react."
...
On Tuesday afternoon, a cattle trader named Haruna Garma lay on a foam mattress in a crowded school complex about 80 miles away in a town called Lafia. Two bandages covered his big belly: one for where a bullet had gone in, the other for where it had come out. He was shot trying to catch up to his wife, he said. Four of his 10 children were killed. One died in the town hospital, when it was set on fire.
...
Another man, Lawal Kate Hamza, had gone back to Yelwa for just a night to salvage the one thing he could take from his home: the tin roof. There is no staying in Yelwa anymore, he said. His brother was shot and killed there. It is now empty. "There is no rest of mind," is how he put it.
A rash of sectarian clashes has left dead bodies in the green highlands of central Nigeria, prompted tens of thousands of Muslims and Christians to flee in opposite directions and thrown Africa's most populous nation into one of the most serious political crises since the restoration of democracy just five years ago.
The latest and most widely publicized carnage was carried out on two days early in May, when a Christian militia, armed with Kalashnikovs and clubs, stormed this Muslim market town and crushed it.
Two weeks after that attack, Yelwa is a blackened shell. Houses and shops are burned. Cooking pots litter the streets. The town's people are huddled miles away in makeshift camps. The handful left here are piling their belongings into the backs of big trucks and leaving. Among them is a mother named Adama Ali, who has waited in vain for news of her baby girl. The child was taken from her arms, she said, by the gang that attacked this town.
The death toll here is impossible to verify: it ranges from an official figure of 67 to residents' estimates of up to 10 times that number.
Whatever the number, the consequences are echoing across the country. Towns and villages here in Plateau State have become Christian-only or Muslim-only enclaves. Outside, in northern Nigeria, in the fabled, politically volatile town of Kano, Muslims have rioted in retaliation for the Yelwa killings; some 20,000 Christians have fled their homes.
What made the Yelwa incident such a lightning rod was its potential to inspire even more violent reprisals, and not just in Plateau. Fueled less by religious passions than by deep-seated rivalries over land and power, the attack here was among the most violent and best organized in a string of recurrent tit-for-tat clashes.
The first of those came over a single week in September 2001, when 1,000 people were killed in Christian-Muslim violence in the state capital, Jos. The next year, Christian farmers slaughtered the cattle of Muslim herders, prompting a brutal attack on a cluster of Christian villages. In February of this year, Muslim youths attacked a Christian hamlet next to Yelwa. A few days later, a church in Yelwa was set ablaze, killing dozens inside, including the pastor. There are many other stories like those.
Then, on Tuesday, apparently in retaliation for the attack on Muslims in Yelwa, Muslim gangs set upon four Christian villages. In a familiar exodus, women and children marched along the highway this afternoon, heading north, balancing their worldly goods on their heads. Others piled into cars, with sleeping mats and bicycles strapped behind.
An elderly woman, feeble and dazed, sat on the side of the road under the midday sun. The woman, Rahuta Nicodemus, said she had fled her village of Sabon Gida so quickly that she forgot to bring even taxi money. Her husband, an old blind man, simply sat in front of their house, she said, refusing to budge. She heard later that he had been killed on the spot.
Along the road, opposite where Mrs. Nicodemus sat, small groups of young men walked up and down, with clubs and knives in hand; one held a bow and arrow.
...
Competition for political power has hardened ethnic and religious divides. As land has become scarcer, feuds between farmers and cattle herders have turned deadly. Grievances have intensified between those who claim to be indigenous to the land and others whom they describe as settlers.
The feuds are exacerbated by other fault lines. The people who call themselves indigenous to this region are mostly Christians, from a host of small ethnic groups. Those they tag as settlers are mostly Muslims from the Hausa and Fulani tribes, whose ancestors came from the north beginning 100 years ago. The indigenous people tend to be farmers; the settlers are usually cattle herders and traders.
...
On Sept. 7, 2001, a fight broke out when a Christian woman tried to walk through a Muslim congregation assembled on the street for Friday Prayer. During the next four days, 1,000 people were killed.
The violence did not end. It spiraled across the state. Some of the incidents started off with Muslim herders accusing Christian farmers of stealing cattle. Others were set off by farmers accusing herders of deliberately sending cattle to trample their cornfields.
Hostilities heated up earlier this year, when Fulani herders angered by cattle theft razed a cluster of mostly Christian farming villages. Saleh Bayeri, the blustery assistant secretary of the Fulani cattlemen's association, freely admitted that the Fulani raised money, bought guns and hired mercenaries from surrounding states. They went in with the intention of retrieving stolen cattle but ended up blasting away the villages and leaving several dead, including policemen who tried to intervene. "You know the Fulani man believes in vengeance," Mr. Bayeri said with relish. "There's no way you kill a Fulani man's cattle and he will not react."
...
On Tuesday afternoon, a cattle trader named Haruna Garma lay on a foam mattress in a crowded school complex about 80 miles away in a town called Lafia. Two bandages covered his big belly: one for where a bullet had gone in, the other for where it had come out. He was shot trying to catch up to his wife, he said. Four of his 10 children were killed. One died in the town hospital, when it was set on fire.
...
Another man, Lawal Kate Hamza, had gone back to Yelwa for just a night to salvage the one thing he could take from his home: the tin roof. There is no staying in Yelwa anymore, he said. His brother was shot and killed there. It is now empty. "There is no rest of mind," is how he put it.
Doctors Put Hope in Thin Wires for a Life in Epilepsy's Clutches
Despite daily doses of several medicines, Mr. Neiley, like a third of the 2.3 million Americans with epilepsy, still has seizures. Small ones, which jolt his body briefly, can strike 20 to 30 times a day. Twice a week or so, without warning, he collapses into full-fledged, grand mal convulsions that can last several minutes and leave him confused, dead tired and frightened.
...
But behind the cheer is a life dismantled by illness. Ten years ago he was a successful building contractor in Southern California, married, with three sons. Then one night in a restaurant, he opened his mouth to speak and what came out was gibberish. It was his first seizure. That moment marked the end of one life and the beginning of another.
"Epilepsy is the most elusive and most treacherous of neurological diseases, because of its intermittency, and also the cruelest, because you never know when it is going to strike next," said Dr. Ivan Osorio, a neurologist at the University of Kansas and a researcher in the Medtronic trial. He likened a seizure to a fire spreading through the brain.
...
He has contemplated getting a "seizure-alert dog" trained to watch over people having seizures and to bring them medicine or a telephone. Some research suggests that the dogs can even alert their owners when they are about to have a seizure, perhaps by detecting a change in body odor. ...
Despite daily doses of several medicines, Mr. Neiley, like a third of the 2.3 million Americans with epilepsy, still has seizures. Small ones, which jolt his body briefly, can strike 20 to 30 times a day. Twice a week or so, without warning, he collapses into full-fledged, grand mal convulsions that can last several minutes and leave him confused, dead tired and frightened.
...
But behind the cheer is a life dismantled by illness. Ten years ago he was a successful building contractor in Southern California, married, with three sons. Then one night in a restaurant, he opened his mouth to speak and what came out was gibberish. It was his first seizure. That moment marked the end of one life and the beginning of another.
"Epilepsy is the most elusive and most treacherous of neurological diseases, because of its intermittency, and also the cruelest, because you never know when it is going to strike next," said Dr. Ivan Osorio, a neurologist at the University of Kansas and a researcher in the Medtronic trial. He likened a seizure to a fire spreading through the brain.
...
He has contemplated getting a "seizure-alert dog" trained to watch over people having seizures and to bring them medicine or a telephone. Some research suggests that the dogs can even alert their owners when they are about to have a seizure, perhaps by detecting a change in body odor. ...
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Border Desert Proves Deadly for Mexicans
At the bottleneck of human smuggling here in the Sonoran Desert, illegal immigrants are dying in record numbers as they try to cross from Mexico into the United States in the wake of a new Bush administration amnesty proposal that is being perceived by some migrants as a magnet to cross.
"The season of death," as Robert C. Bonner, the commissioner in charge of the Border Patrol, calls the hot months, has only just begun, and already 61 people have died in the Arizona border region since last Oct. 1, according to the Mexican Interior Ministry — triple the pace of the previous year.
...
Leon Stroud, a Border Patrol agent who is part of a squad that has the dual job of arresting illegal immigrants and trying to save their lives, said he had seen 34 bodies in the last year.
...
"This is unprecedented," said the Rev. John Fife, a Presbyterian minister in Tucson who is active in border humanitarian efforts. "Ten years ago there were almost no deaths on the southern Arizona border. What they've done is created this gantlet of death. It's Darwinian — only the strongest survive."
For years, deaths of people trying to cross the border usually occurred at night on highways near urban areas, killed by cars. But now, because urban entries in places like San Diego and El Paso have been nearly sealed by fences, technology and agents, illegal immigrants have been forced to try to cross here in southern Arizona, one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
They die from the sun, baking on the prickled floor of the Sonoran Desert, where ground temperatures reach 130 degrees before the first day of summer. They die freezing, higher up in the cold rocks of the Baboquivari Mountains on moonless nights. They die from bandits who prey on them, in cars that break down on them, and from hearts that give out on them at a young age.
***
Note: There are more excellent personal stories and photos at this BBC News section on migrants.
At the bottleneck of human smuggling here in the Sonoran Desert, illegal immigrants are dying in record numbers as they try to cross from Mexico into the United States in the wake of a new Bush administration amnesty proposal that is being perceived by some migrants as a magnet to cross.
"The season of death," as Robert C. Bonner, the commissioner in charge of the Border Patrol, calls the hot months, has only just begun, and already 61 people have died in the Arizona border region since last Oct. 1, according to the Mexican Interior Ministry — triple the pace of the previous year.
...
Leon Stroud, a Border Patrol agent who is part of a squad that has the dual job of arresting illegal immigrants and trying to save their lives, said he had seen 34 bodies in the last year.
...
"This is unprecedented," said the Rev. John Fife, a Presbyterian minister in Tucson who is active in border humanitarian efforts. "Ten years ago there were almost no deaths on the southern Arizona border. What they've done is created this gantlet of death. It's Darwinian — only the strongest survive."
For years, deaths of people trying to cross the border usually occurred at night on highways near urban areas, killed by cars. But now, because urban entries in places like San Diego and El Paso have been nearly sealed by fences, technology and agents, illegal immigrants have been forced to try to cross here in southern Arizona, one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
They die from the sun, baking on the prickled floor of the Sonoran Desert, where ground temperatures reach 130 degrees before the first day of summer. They die freezing, higher up in the cold rocks of the Baboquivari Mountains on moonless nights. They die from bandits who prey on them, in cars that break down on them, and from hearts that give out on them at a young age.
***
Note: There are more excellent personal stories and photos at this BBC News section on migrants.
Labels: suffering
Staving Off Starvation: When Real Food Isn’t An Option
In Haiti's slums, round swirls of dough can be found baking in the sun. They look almost appetizing until you learn the ingredients: butter, salt, water and dirt.
In a world where the rich spend millions on ways to avoid carbohydrates and the United Nations declares obesity a global health threat, the cruel reality is that far more people struggle each day just to get enough calories.
In Malawi, children stand on the roadsides selling skewers of roasted mice.
In Mozambique, when grasshoppers eat the crops, people turn the tables and eat them, calling the fishy-tasting bugs "flying shrimp."
In Liberia during the 1989 civil war, every animal in the national zoo was devoured but a one-eyed lion. Dogs and cats disappeared from the streets of the capital.
But all that is, at least, fresh protein. During the siege of Kuito, Angola, in the early 1990's, Carlos Sicato, a World Food Program worker, described a man producing an old chair and promising his family, "If we don't die today, we can survive for four more." He soaked its leather for 15 hours to soften it and remove the tanning chemicals. Then, with boiling water, he made "lamb soup."
An informal survey of World Food Program experts produced many examples of resourcefulness.
Africans dig up anthills and termite mounds to sieve out the tiny grains the insects have gathered. Some seeds, however, provoke fatal allergic reactions.
Like Chad's mukhet bush, wild cassava in tropical regions and baucia Senegalensis in West Africa are poisonous, but can be made edible by pounding and soaking for days.
In Bangladesh, a type of lentil known to slowly destroy the nervous system is eaten when people are hungry enough.
...
Marula fruit is so tasty that elephants knock trees down to get at it, but in battered Zimbabwe, once the fruit is gone people may be reduced to eating the tough seeds by cracking them with rocks and fishing out tiny kernels with a pin.
Plants with very little nutritional value are eaten, like seaweed, tree bark and grass in North Korea or corn stalks in Africa.
Plants that are hard to harvest, like cactus (because of thorns) or water hyacinths (because of crocodiles), become worth the risk.
The skins and bones of dead animals that even vultures are finished with may be boiled for soup.
The danger of all these substitutes is that they can cause diarrhea, which can kill more quickly than starvation, or irritate the gut so much that it has a hard time digesting better food if it does arrive.
Under those circumstances, people can "lose more than they gain from eating," Mr. Webb said.
Even dirt-eating is a coping mechanism that shows its worth when times are tough. The medical name for dirt-eating is pica, and while it is considered a pathology among the well fed, among the poor it can add minerals to a diet that even in good times may only be corn or sorghum mush.
In Zambia, balls of edible clay are sold in street markets. In Angola, a dark dirt called "black salt" is sprinkled on cold food, but cannot be cooked because it loses its tang.
And the dirt biscuits of Haiti - called "argile," meaning clay, or "terre," meaning earth - are not exactly a final cri de coeur against starvation.
Like the mice in Malawi, they are a staple of the very poor, somewhere between a snack and a desperation measure. Making them has been a regular business for years. The clay is trucked in plastic sacks from Hinche, on the central plateau. Blended with margarine or butter, they are flavored with salt, pepper and bouillon cubes and spooned out by the thousands on cotton sheets in sunny courtyards that are kept swept as "bakeries." They cost about a penny apiece.
In Haiti's slums, round swirls of dough can be found baking in the sun. They look almost appetizing until you learn the ingredients: butter, salt, water and dirt.
In a world where the rich spend millions on ways to avoid carbohydrates and the United Nations declares obesity a global health threat, the cruel reality is that far more people struggle each day just to get enough calories.
In Malawi, children stand on the roadsides selling skewers of roasted mice.
In Mozambique, when grasshoppers eat the crops, people turn the tables and eat them, calling the fishy-tasting bugs "flying shrimp."
In Liberia during the 1989 civil war, every animal in the national zoo was devoured but a one-eyed lion. Dogs and cats disappeared from the streets of the capital.
But all that is, at least, fresh protein. During the siege of Kuito, Angola, in the early 1990's, Carlos Sicato, a World Food Program worker, described a man producing an old chair and promising his family, "If we don't die today, we can survive for four more." He soaked its leather for 15 hours to soften it and remove the tanning chemicals. Then, with boiling water, he made "lamb soup."
An informal survey of World Food Program experts produced many examples of resourcefulness.
Africans dig up anthills and termite mounds to sieve out the tiny grains the insects have gathered. Some seeds, however, provoke fatal allergic reactions.
Like Chad's mukhet bush, wild cassava in tropical regions and baucia Senegalensis in West Africa are poisonous, but can be made edible by pounding and soaking for days.
In Bangladesh, a type of lentil known to slowly destroy the nervous system is eaten when people are hungry enough.
...
Marula fruit is so tasty that elephants knock trees down to get at it, but in battered Zimbabwe, once the fruit is gone people may be reduced to eating the tough seeds by cracking them with rocks and fishing out tiny kernels with a pin.
Plants with very little nutritional value are eaten, like seaweed, tree bark and grass in North Korea or corn stalks in Africa.
Plants that are hard to harvest, like cactus (because of thorns) or water hyacinths (because of crocodiles), become worth the risk.
The skins and bones of dead animals that even vultures are finished with may be boiled for soup.
The danger of all these substitutes is that they can cause diarrhea, which can kill more quickly than starvation, or irritate the gut so much that it has a hard time digesting better food if it does arrive.
Under those circumstances, people can "lose more than they gain from eating," Mr. Webb said.
Even dirt-eating is a coping mechanism that shows its worth when times are tough. The medical name for dirt-eating is pica, and while it is considered a pathology among the well fed, among the poor it can add minerals to a diet that even in good times may only be corn or sorghum mush.
In Zambia, balls of edible clay are sold in street markets. In Angola, a dark dirt called "black salt" is sprinkled on cold food, but cannot be cooked because it loses its tang.
And the dirt biscuits of Haiti - called "argile," meaning clay, or "terre," meaning earth - are not exactly a final cri de coeur against starvation.
Like the mice in Malawi, they are a staple of the very poor, somewhere between a snack and a desperation measure. Making them has been a regular business for years. The clay is trucked in plastic sacks from Hinche, on the central plateau. Blended with margarine or butter, they are flavored with salt, pepper and bouillon cubes and spooned out by the thousands on cotton sheets in sunny courtyards that are kept swept as "bakeries." They cost about a penny apiece.
Tracking the Sale of a Kidney on a Path of Poverty and Hope
When Alberty José da Silva heard he could make money, lots of money, by selling his kidney, it seemed to him the opportunity of a lifetime. For a desperately ill 48-year-old woman in Brooklyn whose doctors had told her to get a kidney any way she could, it was.
At 38, Mr. da Silva, one of 23 children of a prostitute, lives in a slum near the airport here, in a flimsy two-room shack he shares with a sister and nine other people.
"As a child, I can remember seven of us sharing a single egg, or living for day after day on just a bit of manioc meal with salt," Mr. da Silva said in an interview.
...Now, a long scar across his side marks the place where a kidney and a rib were removed in exchange for $6,000, paid by middlemen in an international organ trafficking ring.
...
The sums being offered seemed a fortune. The minimum wage here is barely $80 a month, and work is hard to find. Many men struggle to exist on odd jobs that pay barely a dollar a day. Initially, the organ brokers paid as much as $10,000 for a kidney — more than a decade's wages.
...
With poverty offering up an unquenchable pool of volunteers, the local authorities say the ring had also begun inquiring about buying other vital organs from poor residents, including lungs, livers and corneas.
...
Worse still, after his flight back to Brazil, Mr. da Silva, who is not related to Alberty da Silva, said he was robbed of nearly all of the $6,000 he was paid for his kidney when he went to São Paulo during a layover on his flight home. "I begged and pleaded for them not to take the money, telling them that I had sold my kidney abroad and showing them the scar," he recalled, near tears.
Another donor, Rogerio Bezerra da Silva, not related to the others, also lost his kidney and his cash, which South African authorities confiscated after the ring was exposed late last year, and is now the object of mockery in his slum neighborhood.
When Alberty José da Silva heard he could make money, lots of money, by selling his kidney, it seemed to him the opportunity of a lifetime. For a desperately ill 48-year-old woman in Brooklyn whose doctors had told her to get a kidney any way she could, it was.
At 38, Mr. da Silva, one of 23 children of a prostitute, lives in a slum near the airport here, in a flimsy two-room shack he shares with a sister and nine other people.
"As a child, I can remember seven of us sharing a single egg, or living for day after day on just a bit of manioc meal with salt," Mr. da Silva said in an interview.
...Now, a long scar across his side marks the place where a kidney and a rib were removed in exchange for $6,000, paid by middlemen in an international organ trafficking ring.
...
The sums being offered seemed a fortune. The minimum wage here is barely $80 a month, and work is hard to find. Many men struggle to exist on odd jobs that pay barely a dollar a day. Initially, the organ brokers paid as much as $10,000 for a kidney — more than a decade's wages.
...
With poverty offering up an unquenchable pool of volunteers, the local authorities say the ring had also begun inquiring about buying other vital organs from poor residents, including lungs, livers and corneas.
...
Worse still, after his flight back to Brazil, Mr. da Silva, who is not related to Alberty da Silva, said he was robbed of nearly all of the $6,000 he was paid for his kidney when he went to São Paulo during a layover on his flight home. "I begged and pleaded for them not to take the money, telling them that I had sold my kidney abroad and showing them the scar," he recalled, near tears.
Another donor, Rogerio Bezerra da Silva, not related to the others, also lost his kidney and his cash, which South African authorities confiscated after the ring was exposed late last year, and is now the object of mockery in his slum neighborhood.
Documenting Rwanda's Struggle to Make Sense of the Incomprehensible (article)
'Rwanda: After' (slide show)
During the genocide, some 5,000 people crowded into the church at Ntrama, hoping it would provide sanctuary. Instead, Hutus broke in and killed nearly everyone. Now the church is a memorial, one of many that dot Rwanda's landscape. An ossuary is attached, displaying the skulls and other bones of hundreds who died. Rwanda is a country of unburied dead, and many of the displayed remains still bear traces of skin. At Ntrama, survivors of genocide tend the bones, placing crucifixes and figures of the Virgin among the skulls. The church itself, which has never been fully cleaned, contains no information or explanation, only two burlap sacks of skulls.
...
The aftermath of genocide created a huge population of prisoners, and overcrowding is the norm. During the first three years after the killings, more than 120,000 of the accused, including children and the elderly, occupied prisons built to house only 10,000. The situation continues to be so severe that prisoners have to take turns sleeping since there is not enough room for everyone to lie down at once.
...
... asked prisoners why they didn't flee. One said: ''We are an obedient people. We were told to kill and we killed. Now we are told not to run away, and so we stay.''
...
Prisoners and accused sat side by side at the trials, the latter identified only by their pink prison shirts and berets.
'Rwanda: After' (slide show)
During the genocide, some 5,000 people crowded into the church at Ntrama, hoping it would provide sanctuary. Instead, Hutus broke in and killed nearly everyone. Now the church is a memorial, one of many that dot Rwanda's landscape. An ossuary is attached, displaying the skulls and other bones of hundreds who died. Rwanda is a country of unburied dead, and many of the displayed remains still bear traces of skin. At Ntrama, survivors of genocide tend the bones, placing crucifixes and figures of the Virgin among the skulls. The church itself, which has never been fully cleaned, contains no information or explanation, only two burlap sacks of skulls.
...
The aftermath of genocide created a huge population of prisoners, and overcrowding is the norm. During the first three years after the killings, more than 120,000 of the accused, including children and the elderly, occupied prisons built to house only 10,000. The situation continues to be so severe that prisoners have to take turns sleeping since there is not enough room for everyone to lie down at once.
...
... asked prisoners why they didn't flee. One said: ''We are an obedient people. We were told to kill and we killed. Now we are told not to run away, and so we stay.''
...
Prisoners and accused sat side by side at the trials, the latter identified only by their pink prison shirts and berets.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
"Testament to the Freedom and Vitality and Delight of the Human Mind"
- Oliver Sacks
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly : A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby
From The New England Journal of Medicine review by Robert S. Schwartz, M.D.
At the age of 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was editor of Elle and a robust bon vivant, suffered such a stroke. After 20 days in a deep coma, he gradually regained consciousness. His right eyelid was sutured shut to prevent corneal ulcerations, he was fed through a gastric tube, he drooled uncontrollably, he breathed through a tracheostomy tube, his urine drained from a catheter, and his bottom was wiped by others. He felt as if he were trapped in a diving bell, but his mind was free as a butterfly. Bauby wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly solely by blinking his left eye in response to the reading of an alphabet, arranged according to the frequency with which each letter occurs in French (E, S, A, R, I,... W). A friend read off the letters, pausing when Bauby blinked. Letters laboriously became words, and then sentences.
...
[This book] is a remarkable tribute to the human spirit -- a book that will inspire any physician, medical student, nurse, or patient. There is no self-pity and no thought of physician-assisted suicide. The tone is as ironic and dry as perhaps only the French can be. In a seaside hospital, Bauby, imprisoned in his paralyzed body, recounts his days. He notes that a stroke such as his is usually fatal, but "improved resuscitation techniques have prolonged and refined the agony."
...
Now, instead of directing one of France's leading fashion magazines, he is strapped in a wheelchair, completely dependent on others for the simplest demands of life: shut the door, roll me over, fluff up a pillow. ... And then there was the boor who, with a conclusive "Good night," turned off the Bordeaux-Munich soccer game at halftime and left. Bauby's attendants dressed him not in hospital garb, but in his own clothes ("Good for the morale," according to the neurologist). Bauby comments, "If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere." He is, as he says, a "voiceless parrot" who has made his nest in a dead-end corridor of the neurology department. When the stretcher-bearer who returns him to his room leaves with a hearty "Bon appetit!" the effect on Bauby is the same as "saying `Merry Christmas' on August 15."
...
Every sentence of this arduously written book is a jewel burnished by a rare disease and still rarer intelligence.
Bauby died only two days after the publication of his book in France.
- Oliver Sacks
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly : A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby
From The New England Journal of Medicine review by Robert S. Schwartz, M.D.
At the age of 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was editor of Elle and a robust bon vivant, suffered such a stroke. After 20 days in a deep coma, he gradually regained consciousness. His right eyelid was sutured shut to prevent corneal ulcerations, he was fed through a gastric tube, he drooled uncontrollably, he breathed through a tracheostomy tube, his urine drained from a catheter, and his bottom was wiped by others. He felt as if he were trapped in a diving bell, but his mind was free as a butterfly. Bauby wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly solely by blinking his left eye in response to the reading of an alphabet, arranged according to the frequency with which each letter occurs in French (E, S, A, R, I,... W). A friend read off the letters, pausing when Bauby blinked. Letters laboriously became words, and then sentences.
...
[This book] is a remarkable tribute to the human spirit -- a book that will inspire any physician, medical student, nurse, or patient. There is no self-pity and no thought of physician-assisted suicide. The tone is as ironic and dry as perhaps only the French can be. In a seaside hospital, Bauby, imprisoned in his paralyzed body, recounts his days. He notes that a stroke such as his is usually fatal, but "improved resuscitation techniques have prolonged and refined the agony."
...
Now, instead of directing one of France's leading fashion magazines, he is strapped in a wheelchair, completely dependent on others for the simplest demands of life: shut the door, roll me over, fluff up a pillow. ... And then there was the boor who, with a conclusive "Good night," turned off the Bordeaux-Munich soccer game at halftime and left. Bauby's attendants dressed him not in hospital garb, but in his own clothes ("Good for the morale," according to the neurologist). Bauby comments, "If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere." He is, as he says, a "voiceless parrot" who has made his nest in a dead-end corridor of the neurology department. When the stretcher-bearer who returns him to his room leaves with a hearty "Bon appetit!" the effect on Bauby is the same as "saying `Merry Christmas' on August 15."
...
Every sentence of this arduously written book is a jewel burnished by a rare disease and still rarer intelligence.
Bauby died only two days after the publication of his book in France.
Labels: sickness
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Human Costs of War in Iraq
Seeing Another Gulf War, Photographs & Text by Peter Turnley
An excerpt from the introduction:
During the month I was in Iraq I worked independently of the military. I had consciously made this choice hoping it would give me the opportunity to have the broadest exposure to the war, including its effects on the people of Iraq.
One memory will always haunt me. On April 14th, I walked into a hospital room of the Al Asskan Hospital in Baghdad. ... On another bed lay diagonally, a 10 yr. old girl, Worood Nasiaf,with curly brown hair. She was dressed in a small shirt and pants, and her feet wore only little white socks. Her head was pulled back on the side of the bed. One doctor held it in his hands, and another doctor, from the other side of the bed, pushed violently on her chest with repetitive strokes. Both doctors had looks of determined intensity in their faces, and their energy offered a great sense of hope. After many minutes of cardiac massage, one of the doctors stopped and waited a few seconds and put his stethoscope to her chest and listened.
I thought I saw breathing, and a leap of joy lifted me. Then several seconds later, the doctor continued to push on her chest. Suddenly, after what seemed to be at least ten minutes, in one almost violent gesture, one of the doctors stopped and put his hand over her face, and the other stood up and put her tiny hands together over her chest. In the next instant, he pulled a towel over her face. Both doctors turned to walk out of the room shaking their heads, and I realized I had just seen this beautiful little girl"s life evaporate. I stopped one of the doctors and asked him her name and what she had died from. With perfect English, the Iraqi doctor gave me her name and explained that she had died from pulmonary pneumonia, and that it could have been easily treated. Her father could not bring her to the hospital because of the impossible dangerous traveling conditions caused by the war. He then said to me with bitter resignation, "I am sorry, I have no more time to talk, there is too much work left for me to do here. "A few minutes later, a man walked into the room and removed the towel from her face. It was her father. Holding her hands, he stood and sobbed."
***
Note: There's lots of other great photojournalism at that Digital Journalist site.
Seeing Another Gulf War, Photographs & Text by Peter Turnley
An excerpt from the introduction:
During the month I was in Iraq I worked independently of the military. I had consciously made this choice hoping it would give me the opportunity to have the broadest exposure to the war, including its effects on the people of Iraq.
One memory will always haunt me. On April 14th, I walked into a hospital room of the Al Asskan Hospital in Baghdad. ... On another bed lay diagonally, a 10 yr. old girl, Worood Nasiaf,with curly brown hair. She was dressed in a small shirt and pants, and her feet wore only little white socks. Her head was pulled back on the side of the bed. One doctor held it in his hands, and another doctor, from the other side of the bed, pushed violently on her chest with repetitive strokes. Both doctors had looks of determined intensity in their faces, and their energy offered a great sense of hope. After many minutes of cardiac massage, one of the doctors stopped and waited a few seconds and put his stethoscope to her chest and listened.
I thought I saw breathing, and a leap of joy lifted me. Then several seconds later, the doctor continued to push on her chest. Suddenly, after what seemed to be at least ten minutes, in one almost violent gesture, one of the doctors stopped and put his hand over her face, and the other stood up and put her tiny hands together over her chest. In the next instant, he pulled a towel over her face. Both doctors turned to walk out of the room shaking their heads, and I realized I had just seen this beautiful little girl"s life evaporate. I stopped one of the doctors and asked him her name and what she had died from. With perfect English, the Iraqi doctor gave me her name and explained that she had died from pulmonary pneumonia, and that it could have been easily treated. Her father could not bring her to the hospital because of the impossible dangerous traveling conditions caused by the war. He then said to me with bitter resignation, "I am sorry, I have no more time to talk, there is too much work left for me to do here. "A few minutes later, a man walked into the room and removed the towel from her face. It was her father. Holding her hands, he stood and sobbed."
***
Note: There's lots of other great photojournalism at that Digital Journalist site.
Labels: war
Thursday, May 13, 2004
People Killed for Their Skin in Tanzania
from BBC News: "Tanzania fights human skinning"
... the underground trade in human skin which has hit southern Tanzania over the past two years.
The head of the forensic science division in the chief chemist's office [said] that the human skin is used in witchcraft.
According to police the skins are in huge demand outside Tanzania.
They are transported to Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo before reaching their final destination in West Africa.
...
In 2001 police broke a skin-smuggling ring and 13 people were charged with murder.
A total of six young people are thought to have been killed and skinned in the Mbeya region of south-western Tanzania.
...
The prices of the human skins range from $2,400 to $9,600, depending on the age of the victim, police say.
from BBC News: "Tanzania fights human skinning"
... the underground trade in human skin which has hit southern Tanzania over the past two years.
The head of the forensic science division in the chief chemist's office [said] that the human skin is used in witchcraft.
According to police the skins are in huge demand outside Tanzania.
They are transported to Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo before reaching their final destination in West Africa.
...
In 2001 police broke a skin-smuggling ring and 13 people were charged with murder.
A total of six young people are thought to have been killed and skinned in the Mbeya region of south-western Tanzania.
...
The prices of the human skins range from $2,400 to $9,600, depending on the age of the victim, police say.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Ukrainian Migrant's U.K. Tragedy
Excerpts from BBC News article "Migrant's tragedy hits home in Ukraine":
Western Ukraine in the late 1970s and early 1980s seemed as good a place as any in the USSR to bring up a family. Roman and Svetlana had two daughters - first Natalia, then Zoryana.
Then history intervened.
With the social and economic upheaval brought by the end of the Soviet Union, living standards plummeted in Ukraine.
Roman found himself earning the equivalent of $50 a month with two teenage daughters heading for higher education ...
Roman made the journey thousands of eastern Europeans have made - travelling illegally through western Europe until he found himself in Britain.
For the family back in Ukraine, life got tough. But Roman was soon sending back nearly $1,000 a month for his daughters' studies.
Then earlier this year disaster struck.
Roman, 47, was found dead in the basement of the Cafe Royal in London where he had been working as a kitchen porter.
An inquest in the British capital last week recorded a verdict of accidental death, saying the Ukrainian had slipped after taking a shower, adding he had just finished two consecutive 12-hour shifts.
There were claims that Roman - unknown to his employers - had actually been living in the basement to save money.
...
Western Ukraine with its huge collective farms and specialist factories in Soviet times now has little to offer to the working-age population.
"People go abroad because they can't find highly paid work in their home countries," said Svetlana. "The money they get abroad might not be much, but in their home countries it goes a long way. It's not just Britain people go to. There's Italy, Spain, Portugal - wherever people can get to."
Excerpts from BBC News article "Migrant's tragedy hits home in Ukraine":
Western Ukraine in the late 1970s and early 1980s seemed as good a place as any in the USSR to bring up a family. Roman and Svetlana had two daughters - first Natalia, then Zoryana.
Then history intervened.
With the social and economic upheaval brought by the end of the Soviet Union, living standards plummeted in Ukraine.
Roman found himself earning the equivalent of $50 a month with two teenage daughters heading for higher education ...
Roman made the journey thousands of eastern Europeans have made - travelling illegally through western Europe until he found himself in Britain.
For the family back in Ukraine, life got tough. But Roman was soon sending back nearly $1,000 a month for his daughters' studies.
Then earlier this year disaster struck.
Roman, 47, was found dead in the basement of the Cafe Royal in London where he had been working as a kitchen porter.
An inquest in the British capital last week recorded a verdict of accidental death, saying the Ukrainian had slipped after taking a shower, adding he had just finished two consecutive 12-hour shifts.
There were claims that Roman - unknown to his employers - had actually been living in the basement to save money.
...
Western Ukraine with its huge collective farms and specialist factories in Soviet times now has little to offer to the working-age population.
"People go abroad because they can't find highly paid work in their home countries," said Svetlana. "The money they get abroad might not be much, but in their home countries it goes a long way. It's not just Britain people go to. There's Italy, Spain, Portugal - wherever people can get to."
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Under Doctor's Care, Tragedy Strikes a Woman and Her Family
... Doctors say the 31-year-old mother will never recover from her "persistent vegetative state."
...
The anesthesiologist who presided over what should have been a routine 10-minute tubal ligation following the birth disappeared.
...
Kadence Mirisciotta reaches out for a picture of her mother, Kim Jones. Kim was pregnant with Kadence when the photograph was taken. Whenever Kadence see this picture of her mother she reacts and grabs at the photo. Kim held her newborn daughter on Nov. 12, 2002. A few hours later, Kim had surgery, during which something caused her heart to stop and her brain to sustain a massive "insult."
...
On a good day, Kim will sometimes say "Mom" or "ouch," says Gloria as she combs her daughter's hair at Providence First Hill Care Center in Seattle.
...
Her parents, who have moved her to a care facility near their home in Michigan, continue to hope she will one day recover. They spend their days trying to elicit some kind of response from the young woman who wrote poetry and dreamed of owning an espresso stand. Her mother rubs her skin with fragrant oils -- a daily anointing ritual.
Her brain sometimes "storms," the electrical conditions going haywire, a condition that will send her temperature soaring to as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Doctors suggest Calvin and Gloria consider signing a "Do Not Resuscitate" order.
"We're not giving up on her," said Calvin Jones. "We're the only voice she's got."
Back in Washington, Chris, now 31, works two sales jobs in Kennewick to support his family.
Sometimes, before Kim was moved to Michigan, Chris would place their crying baby on Kim's chest. Even in a coma, something about her presence calmed Kadence.
...
C.J., the oldest, comforts his father when he cries.
"I believe in miracles, but I also have to be realistic," Chris said. "Sometimes, I want to picture Kim walking through the door. It's amazing that something so simple could just be taken away."
... Doctors say the 31-year-old mother will never recover from her "persistent vegetative state."
...
The anesthesiologist who presided over what should have been a routine 10-minute tubal ligation following the birth disappeared.
...
Kadence Mirisciotta reaches out for a picture of her mother, Kim Jones. Kim was pregnant with Kadence when the photograph was taken. Whenever Kadence see this picture of her mother she reacts and grabs at the photo. Kim held her newborn daughter on Nov. 12, 2002. A few hours later, Kim had surgery, during which something caused her heart to stop and her brain to sustain a massive "insult."
...
On a good day, Kim will sometimes say "Mom" or "ouch," says Gloria as she combs her daughter's hair at Providence First Hill Care Center in Seattle.
...
Her parents, who have moved her to a care facility near their home in Michigan, continue to hope she will one day recover. They spend their days trying to elicit some kind of response from the young woman who wrote poetry and dreamed of owning an espresso stand. Her mother rubs her skin with fragrant oils -- a daily anointing ritual.
Her brain sometimes "storms," the electrical conditions going haywire, a condition that will send her temperature soaring to as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Doctors suggest Calvin and Gloria consider signing a "Do Not Resuscitate" order.
"We're not giving up on her," said Calvin Jones. "We're the only voice she's got."
Back in Washington, Chris, now 31, works two sales jobs in Kennewick to support his family.
Sometimes, before Kim was moved to Michigan, Chris would place their crying baby on Kim's chest. Even in a coma, something about her presence calmed Kadence.
...
C.J., the oldest, comforts his father when he cries.
"I believe in miracles, but I also have to be realistic," Chris said. "Sometimes, I want to picture Kim walking through the door. It's amazing that something so simple could just be taken away."
Neighborly Kindness in the Midst of the Balkan War
from the excellent book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
During the fighting in the bleak, bombed-out shell of a city that was Gorazde, where bands of children had become street urchins and hundreds of war dead lay in hastily dug graves, a glimmer of humanity arrived for [a Bosnian Serb couple] the Soraks in the shape of Fadil Fejzic's cow. The cow forged an unusual bond between Fejzic, a Muslim, and his Serbian neighbors, the Soraks.
When the Serbs began the siege of Gorazde in 1192, the Soraks lived in the city with their older son, Zoran, and his wife.
...
On the night of June 14, 1992, the Bosnian police came to the door for Zoran ...
...
Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade.
"She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts."
Fejzic, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Gorazde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers.
"On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzic in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk. He came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came for 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Gorazde for Serbia."
...
The couple ... said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Serbs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzic and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone. In his act lay an ocean of hope.
from the excellent book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
During the fighting in the bleak, bombed-out shell of a city that was Gorazde, where bands of children had become street urchins and hundreds of war dead lay in hastily dug graves, a glimmer of humanity arrived for [a Bosnian Serb couple] the Soraks in the shape of Fadil Fejzic's cow. The cow forged an unusual bond between Fejzic, a Muslim, and his Serbian neighbors, the Soraks.
When the Serbs began the siege of Gorazde in 1192, the Soraks lived in the city with their older son, Zoran, and his wife.
...
On the night of June 14, 1992, the Bosnian police came to the door for Zoran ...
...
Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade.
"She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts."
Fejzic, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Gorazde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers.
"On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzic in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk. He came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came for 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Gorazde for Serbia."
...
The couple ... said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Serbs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzic and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone. In his act lay an ocean of hope.
Labels: compassionate people, war
Friday, May 07, 2004
Loving Chimpanzees in Congo Endangered by War
New York Times "Kinshasa Journal: The Gentlest of Beasts, Making Love, Ravaged by War"
Genetically, humans and bonobos, a species of chimpanzee, are more than 98 percent similar. Socially, it is another matter. Matriarchal as a rule, bonobos eschew conflict. They do not fight over territory. They do not kill. Any small friction they resolve through sexual contact: a playful rub, oral sex, full intercourse.
...
Fishing and farming all but ground to a halt during the war, which officially ended last year. Civilians and soldiers alike turned to the forest to fill their bellies.
More and more, the bonobos turned up as supper. Their smoked remains showed up at riverine markets. Babies were orphaned, which is to say they were more or less destined to die: the bonobo infant, accustomed to staying on its mother's back for the first several years of life, has great trouble making it on its own.
...
Environmentalists fear that the logging could also endanger the habitat of the Pygmy people, who have eked out a living in the forest for centuries. The bonobos are sometimes called Pygmy chimpanzees, because Pygmies too are averse to conflict; they too prefer to hunt and forage in the forest rather than fight one another for territory. United Nations investigators suspect that some of them had been eaten during the war too.
New York Times "Kinshasa Journal: The Gentlest of Beasts, Making Love, Ravaged by War"
Genetically, humans and bonobos, a species of chimpanzee, are more than 98 percent similar. Socially, it is another matter. Matriarchal as a rule, bonobos eschew conflict. They do not fight over territory. They do not kill. Any small friction they resolve through sexual contact: a playful rub, oral sex, full intercourse.
...
Fishing and farming all but ground to a halt during the war, which officially ended last year. Civilians and soldiers alike turned to the forest to fill their bellies.
More and more, the bonobos turned up as supper. Their smoked remains showed up at riverine markets. Babies were orphaned, which is to say they were more or less destined to die: the bonobo infant, accustomed to staying on its mother's back for the first several years of life, has great trouble making it on its own.
...
Environmentalists fear that the logging could also endanger the habitat of the Pygmy people, who have eked out a living in the forest for centuries. The bonobos are sometimes called Pygmy chimpanzees, because Pygmies too are averse to conflict; they too prefer to hunt and forage in the forest rather than fight one another for territory. United Nations investigators suspect that some of them had been eaten during the war too.
Survivor of Palestinian Suicide Bomber, Ethiopian Immigrant
BBC News Photo journal: Bomb attack survivor
Excerpts:
One of 10 children, Elad came to Israel in 1985 as part of a programme known as Operation Moses that made it possible for African Jews to emigrate to Israel.
"Representatives of the Jewish Agency came to our tiny village and told us how to get to Israel. This was a dream, is a dream, for all Jews. We were told we could get a flight to Israel from Sudan. We walked from our village in Ethiopia to Sudan. This took nearly a year and many people died on the way. I was seven at the time and I remember my brothers carrying me most of the way."
"In Ethiopia, we lived in a village with Muslims. It was peaceful and safe and we helped each other because we were all poor in the same way. I learnt about the hate between Muslims and Jews in Israel.
...
"I remember a man standing two metres from me. My mobile phone rang, so I went to answer it, and I heard a massive explosion. ...
I had nails and shrapnel in my arms and upper body. My spine was cut, low in my back."
Gradually, he recovered use of his arms. Only now, nearly two years after the attack, is he trying to stand with the help of physiotherapy.
The bombing also had its psychological effects.
"One minute I am happy, and the next I am angry. I can't explain why this happens. I try to be happy because some people lose their life in bombings. I am one of the lucky ones."
"Your entire life can change in a second. In Israel you never know… you live with this all the time. I go out as much as I can but I am often afraid and jumpy. It happened near my home, so it can happen anywhere.
"What would I do with revenge? Revenge belongs only to God. If the bomber was still alive, I would want him dead – but revenge is for the mafia. I don't want innocents to die. If I took a life, how would I sleep?"
BBC News Photo journal: Bomb attack survivor
Excerpts:
One of 10 children, Elad came to Israel in 1985 as part of a programme known as Operation Moses that made it possible for African Jews to emigrate to Israel.
"Representatives of the Jewish Agency came to our tiny village and told us how to get to Israel. This was a dream, is a dream, for all Jews. We were told we could get a flight to Israel from Sudan. We walked from our village in Ethiopia to Sudan. This took nearly a year and many people died on the way. I was seven at the time and I remember my brothers carrying me most of the way."
"In Ethiopia, we lived in a village with Muslims. It was peaceful and safe and we helped each other because we were all poor in the same way. I learnt about the hate between Muslims and Jews in Israel.
...
"I remember a man standing two metres from me. My mobile phone rang, so I went to answer it, and I heard a massive explosion. ...
I had nails and shrapnel in my arms and upper body. My spine was cut, low in my back."
Gradually, he recovered use of his arms. Only now, nearly two years after the attack, is he trying to stand with the help of physiotherapy.
The bombing also had its psychological effects.
"One minute I am happy, and the next I am angry. I can't explain why this happens. I try to be happy because some people lose their life in bombings. I am one of the lucky ones."
"Your entire life can change in a second. In Israel you never know… you live with this all the time. I go out as much as I can but I am often afraid and jumpy. It happened near my home, so it can happen anywhere.
"What would I do with revenge? Revenge belongs only to God. If the bomber was still alive, I would want him dead – but revenge is for the mafia. I don't want innocents to die. If I took a life, how would I sleep?"
| Get a hit counter here. |
