The road to Aanah, 360 kilometers west of Baghdad, was mysteriously empty on Sept 29, 2005. Restaurants, cafés, shops, and markets in the cities on the way to Aanah were all closed. Usually they are crowded with travelers, workers, and drivers, because they are on the international way to the borders.

We know that there is an impending major attack on Al-Gharbiya (the western areas). But the complete emptiness was frightening. The driver explained that the people prefer to stay indoors in such situations.    

  There are 1500 refugee families located now in this very new and modern city of Aanah (the old Aanah was drowned under the Euphrates when a dam was constructed in the eighties). The Aanah Humanitarian Relief Committee said that there are 7450 of Alqaim and its surroundings families scattered in different western cities, villages and in the desert. AHRC report said that few hundreds of families are still besieged in Alqaim; they could not leave for different reasons. Some have disabled members (there are many now in Alqaim), or have no money to move, and prefer to stay under the bombing rather than living in a refugee camp… Many families could not leave. Abu Alaa’, for example, whose house was damaged earlier this year, whose wife  lost her sight in that attack, could not leave because his wife and his father in law were shot again last week, injuring his wife again in abdomen, she is still in the hospital, and he could not leave. 

We call upon the international society to demand that these families are given the chance to leave before the city is devastated. People who stay behind are not necessarily fighters. They simply could not move. 

 Those who left are situated in different places: the Projects area (2500 families), Okashat, (950 families), Fheida (500), Phosphate factory (400), Cement factory (350), Tiwan (400), Aanah (1500), Raihana (100), Hasa (200), Jbab (125), Nhaiya (100), and Ma’adhid (75). (Names of towns, villages or locations)

These families squat in public building, schools, organization offices…etc. Many live in tent camps donated by the Humanitarian Relief Committee. The luckiest are those who have friends or relatives to stay with in proper houses. Many of them need medical help, the children and the youth do not go to schools, they already lost a year last summer, and the women are having unbelievable difficulties trying to keep the families in impossible conditions…

Aanah youth center is turned into a refugee camp. 45 families live in tents, 17 in the building.

Raja Yasin, a widow originally from Basra but was married and had her 10 children in Alqaim says: if we had not run away we would have been killed in the bombing. We have nothing now. We need blankets and food". Raja’s family is desperately poor. She has only her teenage son to help feed the family. But Raja is happy that she run with her family: "the attack will begin to morrow" she said.

Mrs. Khamis, another mother of eight, and a wife of a high school teacher, is not in a better situation: "we had to run bare foot; I left the lunch on the stove when the attack began… There was heavy bombing and mortar shelling, we had to run through the side streets, with white flags" But she is not comfortable in the camp either: "there is no hot water; I have to give the children cold baths and the whether is changing. There is only one toilet for all these families, all together: men, women, and children. My brother tried to go back to Alqaim 3 times to get some clothes and stuff from our house but could not go through the check points. We need blankets, food, fuel, and medicines…the attack will begin tomorrow"

How do you know that?

"Everybody knows that. There were papers distributed"

The Khamis family did not receive the monthly food ration or salary 2 months before the last attack. 

Um Saddam, another middle aged mother of 9, a grandmother of 6 and a mother in law of two, was very furious "Cannot Al-Jafary (the Prime Minister) see our situation? What did we do? Why is it that we are in this bad condition? We are afraid, worried about our sons and husbands, even here in Aanah, the airplanes were roaming the skies over our heads yesterday. This has to end". 

Inside the youth center building, two women were trying to bake bread. The paste was dropping from their hands. "This is the flour we can get here, we do our best to make hold but it is useless".  Mahdi’s family (18 members) lives here. Many of them were sick. "My father is 80, he is completely paralyzed, as you can see" Mehdi said, (an old man was ling in bed, with tubes going out of his body, trying to say something

-"what does he need?"

-"he does not want you to film"

I moved the camera away. Mahdi’s mother had a tumor in her breast, but could not go to Baghdad to get treatment. Diana, Mahdi’s daughter, is a very beautiful girl of 9, named after the British princess

"She suffers from involuntary movements of head, as you can see. The doctors say this is because of rheumatism, but her condition worsened after the attack, that is why I think it is all psychological"

I talked to Diana, at first her involuntary movements were very strong, then after she was relaxed and began talking about her school, she became calm, and the abnormal movements disappeared.

Many health cases in the camp needed immediate medical attendance, especially children, but the families are blocked in the camp. And after the attack eventually began on Saturday October 1, and then the second attack on Haditha under the name of The River Gate, all the roads were completely closed. 

Dr.Hamdi Al-Aloossy, the Alqaim general hospital director was in Aanah, meeting with Dr. Walid Jawad, Aanah general hospital director, obviously discussing what to do regarding the refugees and the impending invasion on Alqaim. 

Dr. Hamdi confirmed that the majority of Alqaim population of 150.000 left the city, and that only the disabled and those who prefere to stay, remained. He also confirmed that many of the casualties he treated were women and children (He has already confirmed this on Al-Arabia channel 3 days earlier). He explained that the families are not afraid of the bombing, the fighting or the mortars as much as they are afraid of an American-Iraqi invasion of the city, something which many families mentioned too.

"After the families saw what happened in Tallafar on TV, and after the threat of the Defense Minister to attack Alqaim, they were terrified. The emigration was crazy. It was an irresponsible statement by the Defense minister. There were no military evacuation orders. These thousands of children and families are living in the wilderness in very bad conditions. A child of 2 months got 7 scorpion stings. Another 2 families of 14 members got poisoned because of canned food. The health security in the camps is zero. And the health security in the bombed and attacked areas is 100% at risk. It makes me cry to think of those families. Child mortality increased three times due to ordinary illnesses because we do not have any vaccines, and no electricity to keep them. Women health cannot be surveyed, many of them moved out of town. We used to receive 200 a day, now 15-20. We do not have regular statistics. But we can say roughly that the death percentage due to women cases increased by 2 times"…       

"We repair the hospital each 2 months, the glass, the water; the electricity…and it is bombed again, the government has to do some thing about this. Violence leads only to more violence"… 

Dr.Walid, of Aanah, said that his hospital can not cover the huge numbers of refugees.

"We are receiving 500-600 patients a day; we do not have this capacity. We do not have a surgeon, an aesthetician, emergency medicines and supplies, children syrups, lab materials…etc. and in Aanah now there are 3-5 families in each house".

During our one hour visit to Dr. Walid’s office, patients never stopped coming in and going out. The majority of them are from Alqaim or Rawa, another western Iraqi city which witnessed a very bad invasion 3 months ago. A young woman of 18, Sabreen, limping, needs an operation and natural therapy.she is one of 5 women workers in Rawa textile factory who were shot by the American troops 3 months ago, injuring everybody. Dr. Walid sent her to a surgeon in Ramadi, a friend of his.  

In Aanah high school, we met 14 families; the majority of them were from Rawa. They turned the class rooms into guest room, living room, and kitchen. Class desks were used as kitchen tables, and they wash dishes and clothes in the yard. Needless to say all the schools in the attacked areas are closed. But in Aanah, where the situation is relatively calm, the schools are opened, but they use 2-3 class rooms and give the rest to the refugee families to stay in. 

  Four months ago we met an old man in Rawa, Fowad Khleif, whose house was blown up from inside, whose 4 sons were arrested, and whose family was made homeless. In Aanah high school now, an old woman was crying bitterly, saying that she does not care about her blown up house, or her burnt out furniture, she is only worried about her 4 sons who were arrested 4 months ago, and 2 of them are now in Camp Bucca, and 2 in Abu Greib. It turned out that she is Fowad’s wife, the mother of the same 4 arrested young men. She has been living in the school with her grand children and daughters in law for the last 3 months.  

The saddest thing about these families is that they do not know why they are facing this destiny. Aala’ Ahmad,15, does not understand how could the American troops take her family’s house, occupy it and send them away, just because it looks on the whole town of Rawa: "they did not let us go back to our house, they said that they need to come back regularly" .Aala’ lost her school year. Um Ismael, a mother of six does not understand why the American troops blow up the gate of her house while it was open. "They searched and destroyed every thing, and found nothing. I do not even have young men to arrest, what are we going to do now?" I did not have an answer.    

The families with whom we spent our first night in Aanah were squatting in a deserted unfinished construction. It is rather big, two floor house. Its owner is a lawyer from a well known family. He meant it to be a guest house. The women cleaned it from dead animals, construction mess, waste…arranged for water, electric lights, and plastic carpets on the floor, some rags on the windows openings, still it is not comfortable to live in , bats raid the place at night, the windows openings bring chilling air, stairs without railing…etc

Afaf, a teacher and a mother of 4, describes what happened:

"We left 3 weeks ago when the bombing on Alqaim began. Some families left earlier after the Defense Minister, Sadoon Al-Doleimi, threatened Al-Garbiya area of an over all attack. They were cleverer because they had time to take some furniture, clothes, food and stuff with them. When the bombing began we had to leave as quickly as possible. It was a very sad day. People were running out of the city, holding white flags, terrified, some in cars, some on feet; some got trucks and helped the old and the families". Afaf was especially sad because her son lost his exam. "If he was lazy, I would not mind, but he is one of the best, I do not want him to lose a whole year".

All these families had more or less similar reasons to run away. But all of them agreed on one thing: they were afraid of the impending American-Iraqi invasion. "We have our daughters to worry about. Every thing can be fixed except honor." They were afraid that the invaders would rape their girls. "We saw what happened in Tallafar. They arrest all the men, the women are left on their on, and the roads are closed. We do not want to find ourselves in this situation" Afaf said.

Thanks to Dirk Adriaensens, BRussells Tribunal