Abstract

Falluja's Health Damage

The article focuses on the health crisis in Falluja, Iraq, following a battle between Iraqi insurgents and United States Armed Forces. While the North American news media have focused on the military triumph of U.S. Marines in Falluja, little attention has been paid to reports that U.S. armed forces killed scores of patients in an attack on a Falluja health center and have deprived civilians of medical care, food and water. The clinic had been treating many of the city's sick and wounded after U.S. forces took over the main hospital at the start of the invasion. Fifteen medics, four nurses and five health support staff were killed. Although the deaths of these individual health workers could not be independently confirmed, physician Sami al-Jumaili's account is echoed by Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi reporter for Reuters and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Doctor Eiman al-Ani of Falluja General Hospital, who said he reached the site shortly after the attack, said that the entire health center had collapsed on the patients. The Falluja facility was a health center operating as a small hospital, a protected institution under international law.