Falluja - an eyewitness account

[muriel_volestrangler]

An account from a humanitarian volunteer - so not profressionally written. If it's all true, it's very frightening. I can find no other reference to 'Detention Holding Facility Material' on the web, so I wonder if that is really what DHFM stands for. If it is, then the Marines seem to be anticipating mass arrests in Fallujah - and what then happens to the city?

http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Politics&F=1&id=6831

We passed a huge convoy of American military lorries carrying containers with DHFM (Detention Holding Facility Material) inside and long lorries carrying wood with the same initials stamped on it - there must have been enough to build several detention holding facilities. Then we passed a lorry which was being looted by people from a local village. We drove by quickly. Then we came to the American checkpoints - there were long queues of traffic waiting to go through. We were lucky at both - they did not really bother to search our bags of the bus that much and they only body searched the males.
...
Antother aid worker there repeated the same. We went into the hosptial. Suddenly a young boy was brought in. He had been shot in the head by an American sniper while his family had tried to leave their house waving a white flag. His parents were grief stricken, his father covered in his son's blood.

They told us to film their dying son, I hated to, but I took his photo and I have emailed it to Kevin so you can see what the Americans are doing in Fallujah. At the same time, a middle aged woman was brought in - she had been shot in the abdomen and chest - we could hear her lungs filled with blood as she tried to breath - she later died too - I have also sent her photo. She had come into the sight of a sniper and he had indiscrimainatley shot her - a woman in her chadoor, not a fighter, no gun in hand.
...
Sadly the man was already dead, lying in the street. They brought him to the hospital. Then they went again, this time in the already damaged ambulance with Ghareeb driving. The hospital had received a call about a pregnanat woman in difficulty about to give birth. As they approached the house the ambulance came under heavy sniper fire - Jo said there were red flashes going past her head, the bullets were so close.

[Merlin]

1. Awesome story. Thanks for posting this! n/t

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