Little Saints...2
It took me 3 days to dim the image of little Saint Rita, deformed and blind, running lost in a hospital corridor, bumping into broken chairs and bed with no sheets...with her name tagged around her neck like a dog's collar...it took me 3 days...and am wondering how many days will it take me to dim the following image from my mind ?
Yet I know the little saints icons will never be erased from my mind, they will forever remain a torch of truth burning, burning bright, the flames of Truth...
Diyala province, on the outskirts of Baquba.
The US brave boys, the rapists, torturers and killers who crossed oceans stinking of greed and hatred, bombed a lone house made of mud and bricks, in a field, on the outskirts of Baquba. Sunni insurgents - they said.
Troops then encircled the house, taking the mother and father. They were never seen again. The house collapsed except for one room. After some time, when things calmed down, a distant neighbor passed by the field and entered the house, he does not know why, he assumed everyone in the household was already dead.
What he saw, he still recounts with tears. In that one small room, he saw four orphans left behind, emaciated. 3 boys and one girl. The eldest boy was 11, the second 7, the third a 4 year old girl, and the fourth an infant boy in a crib.
No neighbor could take all the children in, Diyala witnessed many massacres and exiles and poverty rates are staggering there. The people decided to rebuild that one room left, collectively provide food and water, and take turns in guarding the children until a "solution is found"...
Some time passed, and a elderly man arrives, claiming to be a distant relative of the family. No one could ascertain the truth of such a claim since the children themselves did not know him, but it seems he looked of "good faith " and the people gave him the benefit of the doubt.
More time passed and one day this distant neighbor decided to pay a visit, the children and the elderly man disappeared...no one knows where to.
More time elapsed, and the neighbor spotted the elderly man and the three boys. He inquired what happened to the 4 year old girl. I shall call her X, the anonymous face. Little Saint X.
The oldest boy, the 11 year old, smiled with happiness, replying - Uncle married her off. Not knowing what this meant.
It turns out that this "uncle", so called distant relative, sold little Saint X to a matron who runs an overseas brothel. She buys the little Iraqi Saints, and after a period of "training", sells them again as sex slaves to the highest overseas bidder.
I don't want to know what the "training" of a 4 year old Saint consists of...I don't even want to imagine it...
But at night, as I lay down, it creeps in my mind...in between my futile attempts at feigning sleep...through the cracks of a bedroom immersed in total obscurity...I imagine and fight the images with pictures of singing sweet lullabies to a sleeping girl, I fight it with pictures of reading a bed time story made of beautiful princesses safely tucked in shiny marbled castles...but the images stay, they persist, a torch burning with your Truth...
N.B: A reminder - official Iraqi puppet government figures confirms the number of little orphaned saints at 5 million since 2003 and the number of street little saints in Baghdad alone at 500'000. The little saints of the "new" Iraq.
Yet I know the little saints icons will never be erased from my mind, they will forever remain a torch of truth burning, burning bright, the flames of Truth...
Diyala province, on the outskirts of Baquba.
The US brave boys, the rapists, torturers and killers who crossed oceans stinking of greed and hatred, bombed a lone house made of mud and bricks, in a field, on the outskirts of Baquba. Sunni insurgents - they said.
Troops then encircled the house, taking the mother and father. They were never seen again. The house collapsed except for one room. After some time, when things calmed down, a distant neighbor passed by the field and entered the house, he does not know why, he assumed everyone in the household was already dead.
What he saw, he still recounts with tears. In that one small room, he saw four orphans left behind, emaciated. 3 boys and one girl. The eldest boy was 11, the second 7, the third a 4 year old girl, and the fourth an infant boy in a crib.
No neighbor could take all the children in, Diyala witnessed many massacres and exiles and poverty rates are staggering there. The people decided to rebuild that one room left, collectively provide food and water, and take turns in guarding the children until a "solution is found"...
Some time passed, and a elderly man arrives, claiming to be a distant relative of the family. No one could ascertain the truth of such a claim since the children themselves did not know him, but it seems he looked of "good faith " and the people gave him the benefit of the doubt.
More time passed and one day this distant neighbor decided to pay a visit, the children and the elderly man disappeared...no one knows where to.
More time elapsed, and the neighbor spotted the elderly man and the three boys. He inquired what happened to the 4 year old girl. I shall call her X, the anonymous face. Little Saint X.
The oldest boy, the 11 year old, smiled with happiness, replying - Uncle married her off. Not knowing what this meant.
It turns out that this "uncle", so called distant relative, sold little Saint X to a matron who runs an overseas brothel. She buys the little Iraqi Saints, and after a period of "training", sells them again as sex slaves to the highest overseas bidder.
I don't want to know what the "training" of a 4 year old Saint consists of...I don't even want to imagine it...
But at night, as I lay down, it creeps in my mind...in between my futile attempts at feigning sleep...through the cracks of a bedroom immersed in total obscurity...I imagine and fight the images with pictures of singing sweet lullabies to a sleeping girl, I fight it with pictures of reading a bed time story made of beautiful princesses safely tucked in shiny marbled castles...but the images stay, they persist, a torch burning with your Truth...
N.B: A reminder - official Iraqi puppet government figures confirms the number of little orphaned saints at 5 million since 2003 and the number of street little saints in Baghdad alone at 500'000. The little saints of the "new" Iraq.
