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Location: India
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http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/apr/05iraq.htm
__________________________________________________- All but a handful of the once sizeable Indian community that lived and worked in Umm Qasr have fled this increasingly lawless southern Iraqi border town. Until 48 hours ago, there were just under 1,000 Indians working at the docks and in local factories like the Akash Jabbar Housing Contracting Company. Now they fear the Iraqis as well as the invading armies of Britain and America. To add to their woes, lawless gangs of youths, freed of Saddam Hussein's stiflingly repressive security forces, feel free to rob and loot as they please. � The director of the hospital and its only doctor, Mohammed Misr, told rediff.com how he pleaded with British forces to provide him water. Instead, Royal Marine commandos turned up with boxes of chocolate. � One French television team that arrived in Umm Qasr two weeks ago thought they had secured a local base in the town. But after three days their landlord ransacked their possessions and looted them of everything they had. The members of a Middle Eastern television team, Dubai-based MBC, had all their equipment worth US $400,000 stolen within a day of arriving. One Swedish journalist was held up at gunpoint on the main road. He was ordered to strip and allowed to leave dressed only in his underpants. Many foreign journalists have assumed that all Iraqis would be anti-Saddam and grateful to see friendly foreign faces. But the reality has been much more complex. As the owner of the local petrol station told rediff.com, "Saddam did some bad things, but he did some good things too. Anyway, what happens in our country is our business; we don't like foreigners." _________________________________________________ shades of Afghanistan! |
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