On this day but Seventeen years ago, hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians were hiding from the American terror bombardments in a bomb shelter in Amiriya neighborhood west of Baghdad. They didn’t know that the craws were hovering over the building. They children were playing, women were chatting and praying for safety and the elderly were either reading or praying too. Then, a sudden shock, huge fire and then everyone melted on the floor and the walls.
The shelter was destroyed with the people hiding in it by two American laser-guided "smart bombs" on 13 February 1991 during the Gulf War, killing more than 408 civilians.
Seventeen years have passed and that tragedy never left Iraqis’ minds. It never made them forget the brutality and the crime. Seventeen years ago, the whole world stood silent. The world let America lead them to make the remaining living Iraqis they didn’t kill starve for twelve years. Twelve years of deprivation of food and medicine. Twelve years of thousands of tragedies.
And now after seventeen years, the tragedy has crossed the shelter’s walls and entered every civilian's house.
To the souls of the martyrs of the Amriya shelter who were murdered on the same hands that murdered Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I still remember you and will never forget you or forget what happened to you. May those who threw the missiles on you never feel peace. Ever.
