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Iraqi boy's peace in a bottle
17/01/2008 18:49 - (SA)
Falluja - On a cold day in what was once the crucible of Iraq's insurgency, a group of young boys sat around their schoolyard and drew messages of peace.
Fourteen-year-old Taha Saadi, a Sunni Muslim, lost his father in Iraq's bloody sectarian conflict, killed by Shi'ite militiamen in Baghdad when they found out he wanted to move his family to Sunni-Arab Falluja west of the capital.
Speaking without tears or bitterness, Taha said he did not want revenge against the men who shot his father 16 months ago.
"I hope justice will take place," he said.
It was in that spirit that Taha had an idea, his own small attempt to hit back against the bloodshed and mayhem which has become a routine part of life for thousands of boys like him by floating messages of peace down the Euphrates River.
The river cuts through Iraq like a lifeline, snaking its way across the vast western, Sunni Arab desert province of Anbar that was once the bloodiest place in Iraq, through Falluja and then the southern Shi'ite heartland on its way to the Gulf.
So, Taha thought, why not use the famous river to try to bring Iraqis together?
"I know most Iraqis drink from the water of the Euphrates, Sunni and Shi'ite," Taha said.
He went home one night and told his family what he planned: to get his classmates to help him write messages of peace, seal them in bottles and launch them down the Euphrates.
"I see the damage and the Iraqi people suffering, people displaced, the ruins," Taha said. "I said the best way was to send a letter of peace."
Simple messages
Dressed warmly against the cold, Taha and his friends from Falluja's al-Khansa'a secondary school sat around their schoolyard on Wednesday and cheerfully went ahead with the plan.
Some drew maps of Iraq in the national colours, while others drew flags and wrote simple messages urging unity like "Together, Building Iraq" and "One hand, one heart".
One boy drew a picture of a dove, an olive branch and the Iraqi flag in its beak. Taha moved among his classmates, checking on their work and nodding approvingly at their efforts.
Taha and his friends then rolled up their messages and sealed them inside plastic soft drink bottles. Shepherded by their teacher, they walked arm-in-arm to the river.
They gathered on a British-built bridge across the Euphrates that has become a symbol of some of the worst violence witnessed in Iraq.
In 2004, four private security guards from US firm Blackwater were killed in Falluja, their bodies burned by insurgents and then hung from the same bridge, prompting an all-out assault on the city by US forces.
The boys threw their bottles off the bridge into the river. Some of the bottles sank but others floated off downstream and were carried away by the strong current.
"I hope that the Iraqi people can catch these letters and read them and unite Iraq," Taha said.
- Reuters
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