Basra plunges into anarchy

2003-04-10 08:26

Basra, Iraq - With no police or government to speak of and its basic infrastructure battered by war, the southern Iraqi city of Basra was on Thursday sinking into anarchy, with rampant looting, murders and petty crime.

"Let's say I had a problem with someone in the past. Now I come with a gun and kill him. Nobody's there to do anything about it. That's the situation we're in," explained Aya, a housewife.

While most celebrated the end of Saddam Hussein, many here fear that Iraq's second city has been reduced to a town of thieves and criminals, with British troops either unable or unwilling to stop it.

"Even if we hated Saddam, with him at least people weren't out breaking the law because they were afraid of what would happen to them," said Hossam, who keeps a constant watch on his small general store, which he has shut down for fear of looters.

After a two-week siege, British troops entered the heart of Basra on Monday. But residents say the violence has not ceased; only instead of shelling, the worries are burglary and the settling of old scores.

"We're getting patients who were hurt in the looting, stabbed by their neighbours, hit by bullets in squabbles between members of (Saddam's) Baath Party and their rivals," said Muayad Jumah Lefta, a doctor at the city's largest hospital.

"The British are responsible for this," he seethed.

He said even the hospital was targeted, with the doctors themselves fending off the thieves until a group of British soldiers arrived on Wednesday and took up a position on the roof.

British forces say they are doing all they can in a very difficult situation. They note that soldiers are fanning out to strategic sites across the city and express hope the unrest will be under control within days.

The Royal Marines' Seventh Armoured Brigade has arrested several looters who tried to head out of the town with trucks packed with food.

Bitterness over bombing

The British troops already have to deal with bitterness in some quarters over the coalition bombing of the city.

In one incident, 10 civilians were killed when a bomb fell on the home of doctor Akram Hassan, according to residents.

"They didn't have any links with the Baath Party and they weren't in the military," said a neighbour of Hassan.

On a nearby road, dozens of women and children gathered water from a crater formed by a shell that hit the water pipeline.

"Usually this is just for doing laundry or for making tea after boiling the water. But drinking water isn't coming, so we have to drink this," said Shukria, a divorced woman who has four children.

"Where are the soldiers when we need water?" she said. "They look at people heaping up everything they can and they just laugh. It's awful."

Faced with the chaos, religious authorities have stepped in, issuing pleas over the mosque loudspeakers for the faithful not to steal "anything that belongs to the Iraqi people." Residents say a few of the looters have repented and handed back what they stole.

Near the port, the Iraqi ship Al-Jansaa is still smouldering from bombing. But that didn't prevent looters from climbing onboard.

"They don't even know what they want to take. They're stealing for the sake of stealing. It's madness," said a resident who saw the scene.

Shukira, collecting her water, scoffed at the coalition's rhetoric of liberation.

"The British have only brought freedom to the thieves, not to the people," she said. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA