- Title: Tuk-tuks in the time of turmoil - How protesters use the vehicle to help wounded
- Date: 8th October 2019
- Summary: BAGHDAD, IRAQ (OCTOBER 5, 2019) (REUTERS) TUK-TUK CARRYING WOUNDED / PROTESTERS TRANSFERRING WOUNDED FROM TUK-TUK TO AMBULANCE PROTESTERS RUNNING AWAY FROM TEAR GASES / KICKING TEAR GASES AWAY TUK-TUKS DRIVING TOWARDS PROTEST (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED TUK-TUK DRIVER, SAYING (OVERLAPS WITH PICTURES OF STREETS DURING PROTESTS SEEN FROM TUK-TUK): "We take the wounded, we are helping these poor protesters. Now they are shooting them. We take them and bring them back. God willing we will be victorious. [SOUND OF GUNFIRE]. Open the roads." PROTESTERS IN THE STREET LOOKING TOWARDS SMOKE BILLOWING / PROTESTER SHOUTING VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS RUNNING VARIOUS OF TUK-TUK PARKED IN THE STREET DURING PROTEST VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS TUK-TUK DRIVING TOWARDS PROTEST (SOUDNBITE) (Arabic) TUK-TUK DRIVER, KARRAR, SAYING: "We take the injured. There are no ambulances. The ambulance heads into the protest and never comes back. They are killing the injured right in the ambulances. We take the injured and we take them to the hospital. Here they are shooting at us and we are peaceful protesters, no weapons and nothing." VIEW OF PROTEST / TUK-TUK PARKED VARIOUS OF TUK-TUK DRIVING THROUGH PROTESTERS AT SUNSET
- Embargoed: 22nd October 2019 10:16
- Keywords: Baghdad Iraq protests in Iraq tuk tuk ambulance first aid wounded
- Location: BAGHDAD, IRAQ
- City: BAGHDAD, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Topics: Fundamental Rights/Civil Liberties,Government/Politics,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA001B08L83R
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A bright yellow three-wheeled tuk tuk careens out of the rioting crowd with gunfire crackling in the air and black smoke swirling up into the horizon.
Volunteers in red tabards hoist an injured protester out of the back of the cart and carry him into a waiting ambulance. It's a chaotic rescue, Baghdad style, during a week-long uprising that has turned streets of Iraq's capital into a battlefield.
More than 110 people have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the uprising, the worst violence since the Islamic State caliphate was crushed two years ago. Reuters journalists have witnessed snipers killing and wounding protesters by firing into crowds from rooftops.
Protesters say that with crowds packed tightly into the streets, ambulances either can't reach the victims or become targets themselves for snipers.
So tuk tuk drivers, who normally make their living weaving through traffic, have stepped into the breach, plunging headlong down streets to pick up people in harm.
"We take the injured. There are no ambulances. The ambulance heads into the protest and never comes back," said Karrar, the driver of the yellow tuk tuk who raced back into the crowd for another rescue.
"They are killing the injured right in the ambulances. We take the injured and we take them to the hospital. Here they are shooting at us and we are peaceful protesters, no weapons and nothing."
As protesters fled teargas, another driver steered his red tuk tuk into the melee, gunfire crackling overhead.
"We take the wounded, we are helping these poor protesters. Now they are shooting them. We take them and bring them back. God willing we will be victorious," Karrar said.
(Production: Maher Nazeh, Mostafa Salem, Chiara Rodriquez) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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