Grim

" There was something almost beautiful about the white ribbons tied to stakes as they fluttered in the wind; some sitting amid a sea of golden sand, others poking from clusters of yellow and dull-green wild grasses.

But then you saw that these were the most macabre of markings, each one representing the final landing place for hundreds of human beings slaughtered in the sky for this is the grimmest of graveyards. Here on the gentle rolling hills of eastern basra in iraq, beside an abandoned Shiite-era poultry farm, lay the innocent people whose lives were extinguished so suddenly in an explosion at 33,000 feet on a monday afternoon



It had been a long and slow day,nothing spectacular happened,the day just drifted slowly till evening when after preparing dinner,I set the table thereafter I sat in my favourite couch,drafting the next episode of kuwda while my brothers howler,jumping all over the place playing a game of football on playstation...


...Mom's car horn blared from the gate and soon after screeched to a halt in the compound,she jumped out and quickly dashed into the house and towards the toilet,saying she was so pressed and that Hamz and i should go and bring in the yams she bought from the car boot



"I came across a little girl, maybe four or five, her uncovered corpse in its cute red top and a jalababa beside some bushes,nearby was a pink and white stuffed toy bear, a big smile stuck incongruously on its felt face, alongside a Winnie the Pooh.


A western woman with long, brown hair lay who was a british journalist,splayed on the ground, stripped naked as she fell, apart from the black T-shirt gathered around her shoulders.

Her face, scorched around the eyes, stared up silently into the clouds above. She looked almost like she was puzzling over the place from which the shattered bombardier military jet was scattered over 34 square kilometres close to the afghanistan border.

Next to her was a black and white dog,It appeared as if asleep amid the summer grass."


Mom came back into the sitting room sighing with relief while we brought in the last of the monstrously big tuber of yams,we settled over the dining table,having our dinner of semovita and ogbonno soup,Karl ate with relish,taking each mould of semo with lots of soup and dry fish,it didn't take him long to adapt to nigerian soups,I made the transition very easy with my finger-smacking,tasty meals,while we were at it,the very huge plasma tv was on with a plumpy newscaster relaying the news,suddenly,there was a breaking news


"Several human victims were still stuck in their seats. Others were mangled, mashed and hideously manipulated. I saw a leg, a battered trunk, a twisted hand reaching out from the grass and things more gruesome than I ever want to recall.

In a burned patch of grass littered with charred debris lay five crumpled corpses in a heap.

Nearby were boarding passes, a smashed computer, a school book, piles of clothes, a box of chocolates – although bizarrely, two bottles of whisky had survived.

One can only imagine the terror with which these 120 passengers plummeted to earth – should they have been unfortunate enough to have still been alive – after their passenger plane was struck by a powerful military weapon."


A malyasian flight MH17 had just been blown off the sky by russian rebels while between the borders between russia and ukraine,Mom and I dropped our cutlery almost at the same time in shock,we couldn't believe it

"Why would people do this to their fellow human beings" Mom moaned, I shook my head in sadness and turned back to continue eating my food when I saw Karl looking on at the tv with rapt attention,shaking his head a little rapidly,I could deduce he had seen or experienced a similar thing with the way his face squeezed in a frown,lines of horror etched all over his face



"Some of the 200 soldiers of the fifth regiment in which I was dispatched could be seen collecting bodies from the fields.

Some drunk soldiers stopped some foreign news correspondents from accessing the whole site,to prevent them from "poking"

The most sickening sight was a young male whose body had been placed in a white shawl - but hadn't been closed...
.

...There are many circles of obscenity around this mass murder, But perhaps the ultimate insult is that even in death these poor people were denied dignity. their devastated and dishevelled bodies were left in the baking summer heat, exposed to the elements for three days while uniformed goons with guns stole from their suitcases and then stopped international observers trying to solve the mystery of their deaths. ,

allowing motley groups of paramilitaries and the growing media army to trample around some of the aircraft debris. Perhaps the most sickening sight was a young male passenger whose body had been retrieved from a corn field and placed in a black body bag. But no one bothered to close it, so he lay there naked next to the road, his underpants around his legs.

It is simply disgusting. They are just picking over the remains like the worst kind of common thieves,There was a pile of possessions that had fallen from a luggage rack, lying beside a chunk of the aircraft speared surreally into the soil beside a small lake.

Sure enough, a broken pair of Tasco binoculars were still there, along with their case. But a big camera bag was empty. All that was inside was a pink sheet of paper showing black and white pictures of a baby called sueba abdol kareem, apparently born at 3.30am on December 6 2011 to ‘proud parents... Aisha and Umar’. The area was also strewn with personal possessions with which many passengers could be identified "


I touched Karl's arm lightly,his arms were cold and sweaty, he reacted so swiftly,turning to face me,his face the look of someone who had seen something horrible,Mom asked if he was fine,he said he was,that the news simply got him a little ruffled as he hates seeing headlines like this after leaving the american army but ofcourse I knew he was holding something back.

"As I left the main road and walked past a small lake with wreckage poking from the water, I came across another small pile of possessions heaped on the grass.


I watched as five of these officials wearing blue rubber gloves prodded some parts with a pole, then flipped them into a body bag.

Next they placed the bag on a stretcher and carried it through the corn field before dumping it alongside several others at the roadside.

There were well over 50 bodies that could be seen at this one site alone. Some were decomposing fast,

I saw them steal cameras from a bag, then pick up a pair of binoculars only to throw them away because they’d broken in the crash.


Indeed, I watched as one man in military fatigues picked through another collection of items nearby.


As the militiaman wandered over, I suddenly saw among the items on the ground a packet for Atenolol, a type of beta-blocker – and written on the box was the name of the patient taking the pills.

The name was abdel hameed batu,believed to be in his 60s, he was one of the first two iraqi identified as passengers on the downed jet.

 The rebel leader at the site was a bearded man ostentatiously carrying a bullet-laden machine-gun. His alias was Grumpy and he was clearly enjoying his new-found power,working for the americans against his people. "This is a provocation of the al-kunta junta, who shot down a civilian plane," he stressed,rather to himself to probably hear himself explain and justify his treachery against his people despite the lack of any facts to support such a statement."


What happened was that the site where we american soldiers camped while in iraq,in eastern basra was getting a lot of hits lately and an american flight had been blown up in the sky carrying civillians,we got orders from above to retaliate and shoot down a jet which was carrying some journalist and some important iraqis to safety,but some pro-american citizens were unfortunately among "


I cleared the table were we ate,ordering Hamz to pack up the plaes and wash them,he grumbled,saying he couldn't, all he got was an icy look from mom and he packed the whole plates while I wiped clean the dining table,not long afterwards,we all went to bed.

" Some british journalists and british intelligence came in to investigate if truly,some citizens of theirs was among victims of the downed flight,Grumpy blocked their way with his tank, first he told them they could not drive down to the crash scene in their cars. ‘I have orders not to let you pass,’ he said. ‘I warn you once. You have security here to protect you. Whoever disobeys my orders will be dealt with accordingly.‘I have told you many times. You are on dangerous grounds,the team insisted their government and america are both in this fight and as such have a right to check for casualties on their citizens "


" I couldn't yet believe am part of the government mercenary used in killing innocent lives,I joined the army cause I needed cause to fight for and channel my anger over the absence of my father whom I thought abandoned us but what I saw while in the army is beyond me....really beyond me,this is just one of many memories "


I heard someone make a grunting sound,such sound that irritates but triggered by a nightmare,It became frequent and I stood up,it was Karl and his face tightened into a frown,turning back and forth and his legs twitching,I knew he was having a nightmare,I shook him up and he woke up with a scream,his body sweaty,I held him as he cried "am a murderer Maj...am a murderer"


" Then Grumpy insisted the 24-strong team could not leave the road to walk in the fields where the bodies lay, and finally that only one or two could inspect the full site,this. Is after the british corpse has been disposed off, this was an improvement on the night before, when a drunken rebel ally of the americans started firing shots in the air over the observers’ heads. One OSCE officer said: ‘A visibly intoxicated armed guard fired his rifle in the air when one of the observers walked out of the prescribed area.’ But still ‘Grumpy’ was breaking agreements reached with the team of british intelligence. Eventually the observers retreated again after being permitted only partial access. But three days after the shooting down of an airliner that shocked the world, the posturing of those who probably did it remained defiant while the decomposing bodies of their victims become more distended in the summer heat. "


By morning,calm and breathing fine,Karl opened up to me why the news about the malaysian flight brought down from from the skies by rebels brought back a memory of a similar occurrence while as a soldier in iraq

" This was a revolting slaughter of 128 innocent people that becomes more callous, more cruel, more unspeakably grotesque by the day.

Meanwhile, that little girl’s body still lies uncared for and uncollected beside the bushes, one small testament to the inhumanity of an adult world she will never now join."