Statement of
Volunteer Human Rights Worker Jo Wilding
Bristol, England
2 April 2005
I went into the town of Falluja on 10th and 11th April 2004 and 14th-16th April 2004.
On 10th April I entered the town on a bus containing a number of independent journalists and activists, transporting medical supplies. We drove into the town on dirt back roads because we had been told by another journalist that it was not possible to get past the US checkpoint on the road.
We drove to a clinic which was operating as a field hospital. The doctors told us the main hospital had been forced to close by US forces and the smaller hospital, though still functioning, was extremely difficult to gain access to because of what the doctors called “Sniper Alley” – in other words the road to the hospital was controlled by US snipers.
The clinic had no anaesthetic. Electricity to the whole town had been cut so it was using a generator. Blood bags were stored in a drinks fridge and warmed up under a hot tap, which only worked when the generator was running. Because it was not set up as a hospital, it had no bedding until we brought blankets.
Shortly after we arrived, a family came in by private car. A young boy had a bullet wound to his head. A young woman had a bullet wound as well. The family said they had been trying to flee their house because they had no food or water or electricity. They said the area of the town they lived in was controlled by the US forces. When they left the house they said they were shot by a sniper.
An elderly woman was brought in, again by private car, with bullet wounds to her abdomen and foot. She was carrying a white flag. Her son said they also lived in an area of the told then held by US forces and that when they tried to flee the house she was shot by a sniper.
There was one ambulance outside the clinic with a number of bullet holes in it, including one through the front windscreen, holes through the side door and the back windscreen. The doctors informed us that the US forces had searched the ambulance, which was not carrying any weapons or fighters, and had then shot the driver. We, as foreigners, were asked to go out in the ambulance and collect injured people because the Iraqi drivers were unable to drive into US held areas without being shot at.
A group of three – me, a US citizen and an Iraqi woman translator – went out on the back of a pickup vehicle. We held up a white flag with a red crescent on and also our US and UK passports. We drove to the edge of “no-man’s-land” and then walked into the US held area shouting that we were unarmed internationals trying to collect injured and dead. On that occasion we were given permission to do so. The US marines were positioned on rooftops. A marine then ran after us shouting for us to drop our weapons. We had none – only a corpse – and told him so and he returned to his position.
We also went in the ambulance to the smaller hospital to evacuate patients so they could be brought to Baghdad. Because of the US snipers controlling the access road, it was not possible for an Iraqi ambulance team to evacuate them. We were able to get safely to the hospital, holding our passports up out of the windows, and evacuated all the patients to the clinic for transport onward to Baghdad. The hospital was in a desperate state, running out of almost all basic supplies.
On our return to the clinic we were asked by one of the doctors to pick up a pregnant woman in premature labour in a US held area of the town. Because the electricity had been cut, she had no light or water. It was beginning to get dark. I was in the front passenger seat, beside the window, with my UK passport. The ambulance had its siren on and blue lights flashing.
We were driving through the US held area when a single shot was fired. It hit the wing mirror causing debris to come in through the window, hitting my hand. We stopped the ambulance and waited for an indication that we could continue, but instead came under sustained fire. I could not say how many bullets were fired, nor how many hit the body of the ambulance. We reversed as quickly as possible around the corner and out of the line of fire. The two front tyres had burst, so the wheels were destroyed and the ambulance was not usable.
I believe that the snipers shot at us because they assumed we were Iraqis, not having seen our foreign passports, and so treated us as they treated Iraqi ambulance drivers. We were not able to reach the woman by any other route and I do not know what happened to her. We were not able to go out again that evening.
In the morning we went out again on the pick up to the same area as the first time. We were asked to go and collect two sick people in one of the houses. We again walked into the US held area and shouted. We were given permission to go to the house. As we approached the house we could see a body, face down. There was a round blood stain on his back and when we turned his body over we discovered that a bullet had gone right through. His chest was shattered and organs were visible on the outside. The small wound on his back and the very large one in his chest led me to believe he had been shot in the back.
His sons came out of the house when we arrived and said that he had gone out to get the family car to take the two sick people to the clinic and that he was shot in the back. There were many children in the house as well as women, elderly men and a couple of younger men. There were families trapped in several of the houses along the street without food or water. We went to the marines and asked permission to evacuate them all. They initially told us we could escort only women, children and elderly men. They also asked us to evacuate the people from the house whose roof they were occupying.
Our translator went with the two marines to do that. We put the body of the old man into the back of the pick up and the sick women into the cab along with some of the smallest children. We then escorted the rest of the people to safety. There were bodies of fighters at the end of the street, which were attracting a lot of flies. We decided to get the bodies if it was safe to do so, in the interest of public health. An ambulance arrived to carry them and, as it approached, the marines pointed their guns at it and we had to carry the bodies to it at the end of the road.
We then left Falluja with the evacuees, delivering them to the medical city in Baghdad. A group of seven of us returned to Falluja on 14th April. As we waited at the checkpoint to enter, a soldier named Sgt Tratner boasted about having killed a lot of “motherfuckers” in Falluja. An ambulance convoy approached and the soldiers all pointed their guns at the ambulances. We asked whether they had translators and Sgt Tratner, indicated his gun, said “I’ve got the best translator in the world here.”
Supplies had been delivered via back routes, including a Red Crescent ambulance. However the supplies could not be distributed because the marines would not allow Iraqis to pass. We attempted to return to the smaller hospital to deliver supplies. We called out through a megaphone and carried our passports and a white flag with a red crescent symbol on it. We were dressed in blue surgical smocks and wearing red crescent armbands.
We shouted to the marines who were positioned at the end of the street that we were internationals and were trying to take medical supplies to the hospital. We shouted that they could search the ambulance if they wanted to. As we walked towards the hospital, which was away from them, and the ambulance carrying the supplies nosed out into the street, they fired just over our heads. We got out of the road and shouted to them some more. We attempted to walk, very slowly, towards them with our hands up but they fired in our direction again. I assume they were not aiming to hit us but they clearly intended to prevent us taking supplies to the hospital.
We were unable to reach the hospital by any route. During the night there was aerial bombardment. In the morning (April 15th) a cease-fire was announced. Shortly before we left a body of a male fighter was brought into the clinic with a serious leg wound and his throat cut. Later that day we were told by another man who did not know we had seen the body that his friend had been wounded in the leg and was unable to fight any more and the US marines came and slit his throat.
During the night of the 15th April there was heavy bombardment with a particularly distinctive sound which I believe to be cluster bombs. The sound was of a series of explosions very close together in time, usually in bursts of 8-10.
We left Falluja on the morning of April 16th. There was a very large queue of cars at the US checkpoint, attempting to leave the town. Cars were driving away and their occupants said they had been shot at when they tried to approach the checkpoint. We walked towards the checkpoint again holding up our passports and shouting through the megaphone that we were internationals, unarmed, trying to get out of Falluja. The soldiers eventually shouted back that we could put our hands down and they would not “fire any more warning shots”.
We explained that there were a lot of people trying to get out of Falluja. They initially told us that only women, children and men over “fighting age” could pass the checkpoint. We explained that most of the women were unable to drive and almost all the drivers were “fighting age” men. They agreed to let through one man of fighting age per car as long as he was the driver and was with his family. We attempted to negotiate for more men to be let out because husbands and fathers, of course, wanted to stay with their families and many did not want to fight. The soldier, whose name I do not know, said “We want to keep them all in there, we can kill them all more easily.”
I then spent the rest of April doing play work with refugee children from Falluja, many of whom were living in a tent camp in Baghdad or in abandoned buildings such as bomb shelters around the city.
Jo Wilding