IRAQ: WOUNDED AND DEAD CIVILIANS ARRIVE AT BAGHDAD AND BASRA HOSPITALS AFTER HEAVY AIR RAIDS

Record ID: 861826

  • Title: IRAQ: WOUNDED AND DEAD CIVILIANS ARRIVE AT BAGHDAD AND BASRA HOSPITALS AFTER HEAVY AIR RAIDS
  • Date: 24th March 2003
  • Summary: CLOSE OF SIGN OUTSIDE SADDAM HOSPITAL, ZOOM OUT TO INCLUDE EXTERIOR OF HOSPITAL BUILDINGS (3.29)
  • Embargoed: 8th April 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BAGHDAD AND BASRA, IRAQ
  • City:
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVA837XX7NQ9BVU11OOLU5OIG7N7
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Wounded and dead civilians have been arriving at hospitals in Baghdad and Basra, Iraq following heavy airstrikes on the cities.
    More bombs shook Baghdad on Monday (March 24, 2003) before and after President Saddam Hussein addressed his nation, paying tribute to Iraqi fighters who have stalled forces trying to sweep north to the capital.
    The blasts sent some of the city's wounded and dead to the corridors of the city's Alnoaman hospital.
    Relatives searched from room-to-room for loved ones while patients considered themselves lucky to be alive.
    "We saw a missile and I couldn't get my daughter or my husband out. I couldn't see anything. I was digging, looking for my daughter. I was digging with this hand and then with this hand. I uncovered their faces so they could breathe," she said.
    One doctor at the hospital said the hospital had received both dead and wounded civilians.
    "So, we received 29 civilian people in our hospital. Three of them - old females - received, died."
    Witnesses said fresh afternoon explosions struck the south of the city.
    Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said she heard one big explosion and a series of more distant booms coming from the south of the capital.
    She said it was hard to detect visible signs of the new blasts as black smoke from burning, oil-filled trenches was still hanging over the city.
    Baghdad has been rocked by repeated waves of cruise missile strikes and bombings since the start of a U.S.-led war to oust President Saddam Hussein.
    Iraqi Health Minister Umeed Medhat Mubarak has said in the past that the government was prepared to handle massive civilian casualties.
    On Monday (March 24) Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference that U.S.-led forces had killed 62 people in the last 24 hours, including 30 in the town of Babel, south of Baghdad, and 14 in Basra. He said more than 400 had been wounded, nearly half of them in the Iraqi capital. On Monday (March 24) Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference that U.S.-led forces had killed 62 people in the last 24 hours, including 30 in the town of Babel, south of Baghdad, and 14 in Basra. He said more than 400 had been wounded, nearly half of them in the Iraqi capital.
    GULF WAR 3
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