Louay Alzaher
Iraq was plunged into mourning on August 31 after some 1130 Shiite Muslims lost their lives in a stampede in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad the previous day. The stampede was caused by rumours that there were suicide bombers in a million-strong Shiite procession that was moving across the Aaimah bridge for the annual commemoration of the 8th century death of the Shiite Islamic leader Moussa al Khadim.
According to the official story, immediately after the mortar shells hit, people started screaming, warning others about suicide bombers in their midst. This incited fear and panic, causing a precipitous flight back across the Aaimah bridge, with many people falling into the Tigris River.
A contrary account was related to Green Left Weekly by Ali Aziz, an Iraqi now living in Brisbane, following a telephone conversation with one of his relatives, who was among the procession of Shiite pilgrims on that fateful day.
Aziz broke down upon hearing the news that four of his relatives had died in the tragedy on August 30. "My relative told me that the people had been restricted by blockages at both ends of the bridge, and were jammed in, unable to move. When people tried to go forward, they were hit with mortar fire, and when they tried to go back, a car exploded.
"Meanwhile, US helicopter gunships added to the panic by firing at persons in the crowd they claimed to have detected as the launchers of the initial mortar attack. At the same time, the Iraqi army and police surrounded the crowd on the bridge, most of them women, children and elderly people. The army were firing at people, who tried to jump into the river. Many were crushed to death as a result of the stampede. All of these events caused the bridge to collapse, drowning hundreds of people."
A telephone conversation between Tawfiq Alqadhi, another Iraqi now resident in Brisbane, and a relative in Baghdad who witnessed the tragedy, confirms what Aziz had been told. "He said US troops had blocked people from moving off the Aaimah Bridge, when mortars struck the crowd", Alqadhi told Green Left Weekly. "Machine guns were fired at the people, who rushed in many directions. Then, part of the bridge collapsed and hundreds of people died", Alqadhi said.
On September 1, the site of the tragedy was still spattered in blood, with items of clothing and children's toys strewn everywhere. The Iraqi TV Sky Channel reported on that day that, according to eyewitnesses from the Kadhamiya district, the incident occurred because the exit from the bridge on the other side of the Tigris had been closed off with barbed wire and other obstacles deliberately placed there earlier.
As the anger of the Iraqi people increased over the tragedy, health minister Abdul Muttalib Mohammad Ali accused the ministers of the interior and defence of negligence, and called upon them to resign.
The Iraqi Democratic Patriotic Movement accused the US and its Iraqi puppet government of responsibility for the tragedy, and called upon Iraqis to rise up against them.
Iraqi Brigadier-General Abdul Jalef Khalaf, commander of an Iraqi army brigade, who was on duty at the site of the Shiite religious procession, told the Iraqi media: "The US military refused to heed my request to remove the concrete barriers they had placed at the exit of the only bridge over the Tigris River which was available to the crowd, which was fleeing in panic after the rumour spread about a suicide bomber in their midst.
"In the aftermath of the bridge collapsing, with hundreds of people being thrown into the river, the US military prevented ambulances from getting through the roadblocks to relieve the wounded people."
The US occupation authorities have failed to comment on these serious accusations made by an Iraqi army officer.
On the other hand, Sunni residents of the Kadhamiya district immediately rushed to support their Shiite neighbours and, along with the people of Fallujah, provided blood donations to the Iraqi Red Cresent to help the 940 people wounded in the incident.
From Green Left Weekly, September 21, 2005.
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