• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

‘This is My Sacrifice:’ Thousands Maimed in Iraq Protests

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
11/20/19
in Featured, World
Iraq Demonstrations Flare as Baghdad Faces Renewed Pressure

An Iraqi protester carries a wounded protester during a demonstration against state corruption, failing public services and unemployment at Tayaran square in Baghdad on October 2, 2019. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

A fractured spine, paralyzed leg, hole in the back: Hamza took to the streets of Iraq’s capital to demand a better life but now he has even less than ever.

“This is my sacrifice for Iraq,” said the 16-year-old, his strained voice barely audible over the phone in Baghdad.

“If I could walk, I would be back in the protests now.”

Hamza is one of at least 3,000 people who have been maimed in Baghdad and southern Iraq since anti-government protests erupted on October 1, according to the NGO Iraqi Alliance for Disabilities Organisation (IADO).

The staggering number is the latest burden for a country already struggling with one of the highest disability rates in the world, according to the United Nations.

After decades of back-to-back conflicts, Iraq is in the thick of its largest and deadliest grassroots protest movement, with more than 300 people dead and 15,000 wounded.

To disperse protesters, security forces have used tear gas, rubber bullets, flashbangs, live rounds and even machine-gun fire – all of which can seriously maim or even kill, as Hamza learned.

On November 4, the teenager was among around 20 protesters wounded by live fire in Baghdad.

A bullet pierced Hamza’s stomach and exited through his back, leaving a gaping hole.

Two others hit his legs.

‘Basically Dead’

By the time he arrived at a nearby hospital, he had lost liters of blood and his heart was failing, said his father, Abu Layth.

Doctors revived the boy with a defibrillator, injected him with four units of blood and rushed him into surgery.

“He was basically dead. The doctors brought him back to life,” he said.

CT scans and medical reports shared by Hamza’s family revealed multiple fractures to his lower spine, leading to paralysis in his right leg.

After more than a week in hospital, the teenager has gone back home and is on steady doses of anesthetics.

“Sometimes he screams from pain at night,” his father said.

Iraq has a long history of bloody conflict, from the 1980-1988 war with its neighbor Iran to the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein to the fight against the Islamic State group.

Each war has killed tens of thousands and left even more Iraqis impaired for life.

The government’s Central Statistical Organisation says that in the wake of decades of conflict, more than two million of Iraq’s 40-million population are disabled people entitled to state support.

But IADO and other rights groups say the real number sits at more than three million – and counting.

“The number of disabled people continues to grow … We exit one crisis and enter another,” said IADO head Muwafaq al-Khafaji.

He told AFP his group’s estimate of 3,000 maimed since October 1 is an approximation, as the government is either not documenting or not releasing precise figures.

To fill the gap, IADO members have been contacting hospitals and reaching out to families in Baghdad and southern cities.

‘Born to Die’   

Although Iraq is party to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, disabled people suffer from poor health services, lack of job opportunities, and social exclusion.

They have organized their own rallies in Baghdad as part of the larger protest movement, demanding more support from the government.

“Infrastructure in Iraq is not even equipped to meet the needs of the non-disabled,” said Khafaji. “We need more than just ink on paper.”

Iraq suffers from an extremely dilapidated health care system, with hospitals severely under-equipped and doctors threatened on the basis of political or tribal disputes.

In the protests, rights groups have documented the abduction of volunteer medics as well as arrests of protesters from medical facilities.

The additional strain on both patients and doctors means wounded demonstrators do not get quality care quickly enough, leading to severe wound infections.

Medics have even had to sever limbs to save protesters’ lives, said Farah, a 19-year-old medical student volunteering in Baghdad’s main protest camp of Tahrir (Liberation) Square.

Tahrir is full of makeshift clinics treating protesters, including 30-year-old Ali, who wears a bandage where his right eye should be.

On the night of October 24, the father of four was on a nearby bridge when he heard shots ring out and saw hundreds of protesters scrambling away in panic.

Before he could do the same, a flashbang exploded at his feet and he collapsed, regaining consciousness an hour later in a nearby hospital.

But Ali could only open his left eye, as his other had been lost to a piece of shrapnel.

“They want to deter protesters, but we’re becoming even more determined,” he said, as crowds of bandaged men walked around him.

“The Iraqi people have endured everything. We were born to die.”


More on the Subject 

Iraq Demonstrations Flare as Baghdad Faces Renewed Pressure

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Mass protesters in Iraq.
World

A Year After Unprecedented Iraq Protests, What Has Changed?

by Staff Writer
September 29, 2020
Thousands of Iraqis Rally Against Government, US, and Iran
Featured

Iraqi Protesters Face Off Against Cleric’s Followers

by Staff Writer
February 4, 2020
Iraq Demonstrations Flare as Baghdad Faces Renewed Pressure
Featured

Renewed Violence Against Iraq Protesters as TV Station Suspended

by Staff Writer
January 28, 2020
Iraqi Protesters Attack US Embassy Over Deadly Strikes
Featured

Iraqi Protesters Attack US Embassy Over Deadly Strikes

by Staff Writer
December 31, 2019
Protesters in Iraq's Basra
World

In Iraq Protests, Counting the Dead is a Dangerous Job

by Staff Writer
October 31, 2019
Braving  Live Fire and Tear Gas, Thousands Protest Across Iraq
Featured

Tentative Calm Returns to Iraq After Protests, But Political Crisis Persists

by Staff Writer
October 8, 2019
Next Post
US President Donald Trump

US Envoy Says Followed Trump Orders in Ukraine 'Quid Pro Quo'

Women of Color Far More Likely to Die in US from Pregnancy-Related Causes  

Women of Color Far More Likely to Die in US from Pregnancy-Related Causes  

Recommended

An AFP journalist views an example of a "deepfake" video manipulated using artificial intelligence.

Deepfake ‘News Anchors’ in Pro-China Footage: Research

February 8, 2023
Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

February 6, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
A supporter of nurses' strike and NHS holds a placard

UK Faces Fresh Mass Strikes as Wage Talks Derail

February 1, 2023
Israeli security forces in Jerusalem

Palestinian Gunman Kills 7 in East Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

January 30, 2023
The Doomsday Clock reads 100 seconds to midnight, a decision made by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, during an announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on January 23, 2020

‘Doomsday Clock’ Moves Closest Ever to Midnight

January 25, 2023

Opinion

Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Mahsa Amini protests

Imagining a Free Iran

October 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin

How 18th Century International Law Clarifies the Situation in Ukraine

September 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Falling for Putin

September 15, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post