It could take the toddler Marwa years to figure out why she joined the army of orphans of this cursed country and why she lost her parents, brother and two sisters in a barbaric way. Big WHYs will keep hitting her little mind until she realizes that she was just a victim of a dirty play in which she and her family had no role and knew nothing about its rules.
It was the fourth and the last day of Eid al-Adha religious holiday when Marwa’s father decided to take his four kids and wife to the upscale Abdullah restaurant just outside the northern ethnically-mixed Kirkuk city in a bid to steal some time to escape from Iraq’s grim reality.
But neither they nor other families who were sitting around their tables chatting and enjoying their time while eating their favorite dishes heard or saw or even felt the devil when he sneaked to that restaurant as guiding a sick-minded man with explosive belt beneath.
As he entered the restaurant, the man set off his explosives, sending 55 souls to the heaven and other 120 bodies to different hospitals to treat their wounds. Marwa’s family was among the first 55 group while she was among the second one ended up in one hospital with severe wounds.
Police said the target was a meeting between Kirkuk’s three main ethnics_ Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen_ who are in deep conflict over who is the original inhabitant of the city and the best way to run this city, a tension never came to surface before the U.S.-led occupation that started in 2003 but instead it was buried and guarded by Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.
Kurds, who have been flexing their muscles since 2003, want to annex Kirkuk and surrounding Tamim province into their self-ruled region of northern Iraq. Most Turkomen and Arabs want the province to remain under central government control, fearing the Kurds would discriminate against them.
Minutes later and while Marwa was laying in the operation room, a heated race started between the leaders of these groups on the media outlets especially satellite channels, of course they were in elegant business suits with some of them were talking from London and other world capitals. Each one of them was eager to accuse the other of masterminding the attack against his community and demanding protection.
But the two-year old Marwa had a different demand when she was awake.
“I want mom, I want dad,” the panic crying girl said from her bed in the hospital with a tube runs into her bloody nose and a bandage on her forehead.
Wondering, who will help Marwa to find answers for her big WHYs in the future? What will Marwa say when she hears the word “sorry” or the sentence “we launched the war basing on false intelligence” that each American, European or may be UN official say when he leaves his office?
But what I’m sure of and have answer to is that Marwa’s face on AL-Sharqiyah TV will be a nightmare to all these officials who have brought these sufferings to her once-peaceful country.
kassakhoon@gmail.com
It was the fourth and the last day of Eid al-Adha religious holiday when Marwa’s father decided to take his four kids and wife to the upscale Abdullah restaurant just outside the northern ethnically-mixed Kirkuk city in a bid to steal some time to escape from Iraq’s grim reality.
But neither they nor other families who were sitting around their tables chatting and enjoying their time while eating their favorite dishes heard or saw or even felt the devil when he sneaked to that restaurant as guiding a sick-minded man with explosive belt beneath.
As he entered the restaurant, the man set off his explosives, sending 55 souls to the heaven and other 120 bodies to different hospitals to treat their wounds. Marwa’s family was among the first 55 group while she was among the second one ended up in one hospital with severe wounds.
Police said the target was a meeting between Kirkuk’s three main ethnics_ Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen_ who are in deep conflict over who is the original inhabitant of the city and the best way to run this city, a tension never came to surface before the U.S.-led occupation that started in 2003 but instead it was buried and guarded by Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.
Kurds, who have been flexing their muscles since 2003, want to annex Kirkuk and surrounding Tamim province into their self-ruled region of northern Iraq. Most Turkomen and Arabs want the province to remain under central government control, fearing the Kurds would discriminate against them.
Minutes later and while Marwa was laying in the operation room, a heated race started between the leaders of these groups on the media outlets especially satellite channels, of course they were in elegant business suits with some of them were talking from London and other world capitals. Each one of them was eager to accuse the other of masterminding the attack against his community and demanding protection.
But the two-year old Marwa had a different demand when she was awake.
“I want mom, I want dad,” the panic crying girl said from her bed in the hospital with a tube runs into her bloody nose and a bandage on her forehead.
Wondering, who will help Marwa to find answers for her big WHYs in the future? What will Marwa say when she hears the word “sorry” or the sentence “we launched the war basing on false intelligence” that each American, European or may be UN official say when he leaves his office?
But what I’m sure of and have answer to is that Marwa’s face on AL-Sharqiyah TV will be a nightmare to all these officials who have brought these sufferings to her once-peaceful country.
kassakhoon@gmail.com
