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Falluja's Health Damage
By Miles Schuman
The Nation via Truthout
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041213&s=schuman
Friday 26 November 2004
While the North American news media have focused on the military triumph
of US Marines in Falluja, little attention has been paid to reports that US
armed forces killed scores of patients in an attack on a Falluja health center
and have deprived civilians of medical care, food and water.
Although the US military has dismissed accounts of the health center
bombing as "unsubstantiated," in fact they are credible and come from multiple
sources. Dr. Sami al-Jumaili described how US warplanes bombed the Central
Health Centre in which he was working at 5:30 am on November 9. The clinic had
been treating many of the city's sick and wounded after US forces took over the
main hospital at the start of the invasion. According to Dr. al-Jumaili, US
warplanes dropped three bombs on the clinic, where approximately sixty
patients--many of whom had serious injuries from US aerial bombings and attacks
- were being treated.
Dr. al-Jumaili reports that thirty-five patients were killed in the
airstrike, including two girls and three boys under the age of 10. In addition,
he said, fifteen medics, four nurses and five health support staff were killed,
among them health aides Sami Omar and Omar Mahmoud, nurses Ali Amini and Omar
Ahmed, and physicians Muhammad Abbas, Hamid Rabia, Saluan al-Kubaissy and
Mustafa Sheriff.
Although the deaths of these individual health workers could not be
independently confirmed, Dr. al-Jumaili's account is echoed by Fadhil Badrani,
an Iraqi reporter for Reuters and the BBC. Reached by phone in Falluja, Badrani
estimated that forty patients and fifteen health workers had been killed in the
bombing. Dr. Eiman al-Ani of Falluja General Hospital, who said he reached the
site shortly after the attack, said that the entire health center had collapsed
on the patients.
It was well-known that the Falluja facility was a health center operating
as a small hospital, a protected institution under international law. According
to James Ross of Human Rights Watch, "the onus would be on the US government to
demonstrate that the hospital was being used for military purposes and that its
response was proportionate. Even if there were snipers there, it would never
justify destroying a hospital."
US airstrikes also leveled a warehouse in which medical supplies were
stored next to the health center, Dr. al-Jumaili reports. Ambulances from the
city had been confiscated by the government, he says, and the only vehicle left
was targeted by US fire, killing the driver and wounding a paramedic. Hamid
Salaman of the Falluja General Hospital told the Associated Press that five
patients in the ambulance were killed.
US and allied Iraqi military forces stormed the Falluja General Hospital,
which is on the perimeter of the city, at the beginning of the assault,
claiming it was under insurgent control and was a center of propaganda about
civilian casualties during last April's attack on the city. The soldiers
encountered no resistance. Dr. Rafe Chiad, the hospital's director, reached by
phone, stated emphatically that it is a neutral institution, providing
humanitarian aid. According to Dr. Chiad, the US military has prevented
hospital physicians, including a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists,
internists and general practitioners, from entering Falluja. US authorities
have denied all requests to send doctors, ambulances, medical equipment and
supplies from the hospital into the city to tend to the wounded, he said. Now
the city's only health facility is a small Iraqi military clinic, which is
inaccessible to most of the city's remaining population because of its distance
from many neighborhoods and the dangers posed by US snipers and crossfire.
"Falluja is dying," said Dr. al-Ani. "We want to save whoever we can." Jim
Welsh, health and human rights coordinator for Amnesty International in London,
notes that under the Geneva Conventions, "medical personnel cannot be forced to
refrain from providing healthcare which they believe is their ethical
responsibility." The 173-bed Falluja General Hospital remains empty, according
to Dr. Chiad.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has called the health conditions in and
around Falluja "catastrophic." One hospital staff member who recently left the
city reports that there were severe outbreaks of diarrheal infections among the
population, with children and the elderly dying from infectious disease,
starvation and dehydration in greater numbers each day. Dr. al-Jumaili, Dr.
al-Ani and journalist Badrani each stated that the wounded and children are
dying because of lack of medical attention and water. In one case, according to
Dr. al-Jumaili, three children died of dehydration when their father was unable
to find water for them. The US forces cut off the city's water supply before
launching their assault.
"The people are dying because they are injured, have nothing to eat or
drink, almost no healthcare," said Dr. al-Ani. "The small rations of food and
water handed out by the US soldiers cannot provide for the population." For the
thousands living in makeshift camps outside the city, according to Firdus
al-Ubadi of the Red Crescent Society, hygiene and health conditions are as
precarious as in Falluja. There are no oral rehydration solutions or salts for
those who are dehydrated, she says.
These reports demand an immediate international response, an end to
assaults on Falluja's civilian population and the free passage of medical aid,
food and water. Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, has vowed to investigate "violations of the rules of war designed to
protect civilians and combatants" in Falluja and to bring the perpetrators to
justice. The San Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers has
petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of
American States to investigate the deaths. The bombing of hospitalized
patients, forced starvation and dehydration, denial of medicines and health
services to the sick and wounded must be recognized for what they are: war
crimes and crimes against humanity.
Miles Schuman is a family physician and member of the medical network of
the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture.
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