Contact with Baghdad (Update #26)

Originally posted in italia.indymedia.org by:
robdinz
robdinz@hotmail.com
Monday March 24, 2003 at 07:51 PM
http://www.italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/226319.php

Background: The following updates are posted by Robdinz who is in telephone contact with several people in Baghdad and are contacted through telephone at two of the hotels in the capital, where the international press is staying. They are independent information agents, freelance reporters, six or seven human shields and some Baghdad inhabitants who work with them. Robdinz is not in Baghdad but serves as a bridge for real-time news and information collected with great intellectual and professional honesty of the actual (dramatic) reality of the city.

8:00 PM Update (Translator's Note: All times Italian, GMT+1)

First of all, the young Swiss "human shield" who was not heard of last night is fine.
As far as I know, he has informed his family and friends of his location and state.

Clarification: The "al Darrua" electrical plant was not hit by either bombs or missiles.
This news was wrongly interpreted because of my incorrect understanding of what a Geman-speaking contact told me. I do not speak German, hence the difficulty.

As it has been reliably reported to me in the last few days, the civilian fatalities of the bombing are numerous. Just this afternoon is was reported with absolute certainty that there have been seventy victims in the past 36 hours.
The wounded in the same period as more than 400.
This morning four small civilian buildings were hit, not just one as I reported in the morning.
In this specific incident there were eleven fatalities and more than thirty wounded, some in serious condition.

The University has been hit again (some have only realized it now).
Schools of every type and grade have been bombed.
A small suburb hospital was also hit, although not directly.

This is the third day that the city is without water, leading to the logical consequences.

This afternoon's bombing and those of occurring right now are reported to be the most violent, continuous and devastating since the beginning of the military operations against and on Baghdad.

The city is deserted. Without electricity. There is nobody on the streets, not even Iraqi soldiers or the usual armed men dressed in civilian.

The freelance reporters are being sheltered in private homes and in other places gracefully provided by students and professors at the University.

The sanitary conditions are collapsing and it is not possible to foresee any change, given fact that the tremendous wave of bombing will certainly produce more casualties and fatalities.

The civilian housing , many of which have been deliberately aimed at considering the distances from Saddam's Palaces and centers of political and military power, number in the hundreds. Thousands of people do not know where to pass the night and seek refuge in the cars or buses that are trying to leave the city.

There is not confirmation of a third Anglo-american airplane downed by the Iraqi anti-aircraft during early afternoon. The rumor seems to be more than and a simple rumor though.

Concerning the pilots who parachuted into the city yesterday after the downing of their place, it is now certain that there were two. One was certainly English and is being held prisoner.
As to the other one, his nationality is unknown and if he is being held by the military or Baghdad inhabitants.

After the Saddam Hussein' television appearance this morning, thousands of people were on the streets shouting "no to war" and in some cases promising vengeance against the Anglo-american forces.

The city has now been bombed in every single place, area and neighborhood. The dense clouds of smoke coming from the fires cause by the bombs in the center of the city is mixing into an unbreathable covering with the smoke from the fires that can be seen in the suburbs.

Anglo-american invading troops are already present in the city. Nobody has seen them for sure, but everyone talks about them, some even using great detail. The say that they are of Middle Eastern origin or African American that speak fluent Arabic and can easily hide within the Iraqi population.
This, is it reported, are only rumors, perhaps caused by the great tension in the city and almost complete lack of information given by the Iraqi television.

Radio frequencies are still saturated by reports and updates in blatantly false Arabic (which are believed by almost nobody) and sustain that American and British troops are outside of the city and have not encountered any resistance since Iraqi troops encountered have surrendered.
Ironically also, they ask the inhabitants of Baghdad not to believe reports that there are civilian victims during the bombing of civilian homes.
These false news reports insist that the civilian homes hit are being destroyed by Iraqi forces to show the triumphal Anglo-american advance in a negative light.

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