About 40 were at the Edmund Rice Oceania Support Centre on March 24 for the launch of Donna Mulhearn's new book, Ordinary Courage: My Journey to Baghdad as a Human Shield. Mulhearn travelled to Iraq before the March 2003 US-led invasion.
Mulhearn joined hundreds of other human shields from around the world, who tried to protect vital civilian infrastructure in Iraq from the US-led "shock and awe" attack by camping near the sites. A journalist and committed peace activist, Mulhearn recounts in her book the moving story of her personal experiences in Iraq at that time.
Mulhearn spoke about her experiences of living in Iraq, and the suffering of the children, including those injured by US bombing and those already dying of cancer from the effects of depleted uranium used by the Western powers in the First Gulf War in 1991. She also referred to her later return to Iraq to help orphanages for the children of war victims.
Visit www.ordinarycourage.org for more information about the book.