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| Iraq |
| Death squads target Iraqi "dustmen" |
| 2006-04-23 |
| IRAQ’S dustmen — mainly students working their way through college — have become targets for assassination in the country’s latest wave of ethnic violence. In the past month 22 mostly Shi’ite dustmen have been killed on duty, prompting the governor of Baghdad to appeal to the public to protect them or face a refuse crisis in a city that is already in chaos. Mountains of festering, unbagged filth are spilling across road junctions and street corners as the dustmen, who earn £1.70 for each four-hour shift, become increasingly wary. One mother, Um Ahmad, lost two sons last week. Ahmad 21, and Ammar, 18, both engineering students, were killed with three colleagues as they collected rubbish in the al-Doura district of the capital. “They lost their father three years ago during the invasion of Iraq,” she explained sadly. “My boys wanted to earn an honest living while studying and the only job they could find was collecting rubbish.” Last Wednesday they left home for a 2am shift before college. “I had a bad feeling that morning — call it mother’s intuition,” she said. “For the first time since they took the job I asked them not to go to work. They were surprised, laughed away my fears, kissed me on the head and wished me a good day before leaving the house.” She sobbed openly as she added: “I wish they had never gone.” A few hours later Um Ahmad was visited by a neighbour who asked whether her boys had gone to work. When she said yes, the neighbour left, looking upset. Worried by the question, Um Ahmad put on her black cloak and walked for 15 minutes until she found police cars and a crowd gathered around the entrance to a building. “My heart was beating fast and when they stopped me from entering I told them I wanted to check on my sons,” she said. Inside, she saw five bodies on the floor, covered with cloth. “I stood by one, not knowing if it was Ahmad, and began to cry until the man in charge came and told me, ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ as he began to uncover the faces of the dead. “I thought I had lost one son. Instead I found both my boys lying dead on the floor.” She began to scream and wail at the sight of her two dead boys. According to witnesses, gunmen in an Opel and a BMW driving by opened fire on the men as they worked their way along the streets. Not only are the dustmen unprotected, but the government and local authorities pay no compensation to the families of the dead. No official has visited Um Ahmad, a poor widow left with a daughter and a young son; nor has she received any contribution towards the costs of the funerals. A neighbour said: “This is the sad fate of the dustmen. They perform a vital public service but nobody helps their families.” Asked why the dustmen were being targeted, a Sunni insurgent in the district replied that they had brought punishment on themselves. “We are not against cleanliness or those who work for the good of the country, but these men are traitors — firstly for being Shi’ites and secondly because we have warned them time and time again that we plant booby traps and explosives in rubbish heaps and they shouldn’t report discoveries to the police, but they always do,” claimed the insurgent. He said he belonged to the Al-Qaeda in Iraq organisation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the country’s most wanted man. “So what if these Shi’ites are being killed. Every day Sunnis are found shot and drilled to death and nobody is doing much about that,” he added. Another insurgent claimed spies had been planted among the dustmen by the Shi’ite Badr militia to report on the activities of Sunni insurgents. “How come most dustmen are Shi’ite and you can hardly find a Sunni allowed to work?” he said. “Those who did in the past were either fired or arrested by the interior ministry and then their bodies turned up in the morgues.” Kathem Shalash, a 22-year-old Shi’ite student, was injured last year and his cousin killed when a bomb planted in a pile of rubbish blew up as he worked in the al-Shula district. “I do not do this job out of love but because I needed to earn a living to finish my studies and help my family,” he said. “After the explosion I asked to be transferred to work in the posh Mansour district because I though it was safer, but nowadays everywhere is dangerous. “I avoid large piles of rubbish. Sometimes I throw stones at them from a distance to check if they are safe, but when I’m not sure I just leave them,” he said. The targeting of dustmen follows a spate of kidnappings and murders of professional people including doctors, academics and former pilots. The bloodshed has triggered an exodus of intellectuals from the country. Amid growing fears that Iraq is on the verge of civil war, Sunnis who accuse the dominant Shi’ite alliance of running death squads have begun to band together in in so-called neighbourhood vigilante groups. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #6 I don't approve of vigilantes or death squads in Iraq. It's hard enough for the people to adjust to the lifting of 30 years of having a foot on their heads without this. Anyone - ANYONE - caught belonging to either a vigilante justice group or a death squad/sectarian militia should be immediately castrated and branded, so that everyone can see at a distance who these slimeballs are, and avoid them. There is no punishment as great as being excluded from an inclusive society. Also, their genes should NEVER be allowed back into the gene pool. It'll take a couple of decades, but in the end, Iraq will be peaceful - either because the people know what limits the live under, or there aren't any people left. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-04-23 13:52 |
| #5 wanna bet most sunis consider themselves above this kind of work. I'm not feeling real bad about Shiite death squads either, pal. Hope they visit you real soon |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-04-23 12:18 |
| #4 "face a refuse crisis in a city that is already in chaos." Could be D.C., New Orleans, Los Angeles.... yawn. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-23 11:06 |
| #3 Send the reporters over there to help and pick up garbage. The reporters get first class coverage of actual events and some just might get killed. A win-win situation! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-04-23 10:15 |
| #2 face a refuse crisis in a city that is already in chaos This is the new buzz phrase that reporters were told to insert into every article - since country on the"brink of sectarian civil war" was so widely ridiculed. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-04-23 10:14 |
| #1 the brave lions strike again ..at the people aiding their families .. I guess the 2000 year inbreeding program can stop now . |
| Posted by: MacNails 2006-04-23 05:39 |