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Iraq Diaries
Iraq: A Hero Dies In The Valley Of Death

Helen Williams and Wejdy Adeeb, Youth Aid Iraq

Oct 27, 2004


We first met Ghareeb in April while the Americans were laying siege to Fallujah. We met him through a trusted friend and they asked us if we would be willing to accompany them on a mission to take medical aid into Fallujah. We agreed to go with them the next day.

We understood from this friend and Ghareeb that they had made several trips into Fallujah, taking in urgently needed supplies and bringing out injured people and women and children. This was at great risk to their personal safety and wellbeing. Ghareeb, when we met him, was shattered, tired and worn out. He had been in and out of Fallujah constantly doing this vital, brave work and had barely slept in weeks.

He would use his own car to bring as much relief and to alleviate the suffering as much as he could for those poor people. He didn't have to do it, but we could see that he was a man who felt compelled to help in any way he could. It was his love of humanity and his concern for oppressed people that drove him on. We don't know how he stayed awake, but in Fallujah he even drove the clinic's last ambulance. He tirelessly drove around the city collecting the injured from dangerous sniper riddled streets and picking up the dead from where they had fallen.

He performed this task all day until the ambulance, already shot at by snipers in the morning, was rendered undrivable after it came under attack again from American snipers. Yes, the Americans had shot at ambulances in Fallujah. When Ghareeb's ambulance was shot at, nearly killing him and the others with him in the vehicle, it was his quick thinking and speedy getaway, although very tired, that saved them and prevented any of them from being killed themselves.

The next day we left the city, bringing out many injured souls and taking them to Medical City in Bagdad, where hopefully some would have a chance of recovery and life.

We did not see Ghareeb again for some time, we had moved appartments and lost touch. But then, in the summer, there was a happy reunion when we bumped into him by chance outside his favourite restaurant. We sat with him, drank chai ("tea") and ate food for some five hours until the early hours of the morning. We had so much to tell each other. Ghareeb, naturally, had so much more to say. He had been helping the suffering people of Basra, some of whom had been gunned down and tortured by British troops and he had been driving to and from there doing more vital work to try to help bring justice for these people. Indeed, although he had been up late with us, he was to go there the next day and we saw the same tired Ghareeb we had first met in April, driven on by his need to help. He also told us about Zeinab, a young girl who had lost a leg in Basra. He had been instrumental in getting her to Britain to receive treatment, even driving her to Jordan himself, from where she left for Britain.

Zeinab had lost 17 members of her family in that same raid – the tragedy is hard to take in. Ghareeb had so many things 'on the go'. He would talk about doing one thing the next day and end up doing some other vitally important humanitarian mission. There were so many urgent things for him to worry about - and who will do these things now?

After this, Ghareeb became a regular visitor at our appartment. We saw him almost daily and if we did not see him, he telephoned us to check we were all right and safe as the security situation deteriorated in the country. He was full of ideas and tips on how to stay safe. He had advice for every situation and every problem we came up against in our work, which was helping street children and poor families.

We enjoyed our time with him, often having big laughs as Ghareeb had a wicked sense of humour. We used to make fun of each other all the time. We always went on at him for not being vegan, asking him how such a caring, kind person could eat animals. He used to say "Look, I'm Palestinian - we Palestinians must think first about human rights, not animal rights!" When we explained to him that veganism was not just about helping animals, but that it was, in fact, something that helped the starving millions, especially in Africa, he didn't know what to say. We teased him all the time and enjoyed cooking him vegan food, which, despite his best efforts not to, he thoroughly enjoyed.

It was around this time that he was saying that he needed a break, a holiday - just a week or two to sleep and recover. But here was a man, who obviously could not take a break and relax while he knew there were suffering people to help. He used to talk of having a week or a fortnight off, saying that after this trip to Najaf he would just take some time for himself. And he used to say how his family wanted him to leave Iraq because things were getting so bad - they were so worried about him, so concerned for his safety and about the risks he took. He never had that well deserved rest. At one point, Helen had typhoid. We did not know what it was at the time. Ghareeb would turn up nightly with a different remedy for her to try out. One night she was in so much pain that he wanted to take her to hospital there and then. He wanted to be bothered with her wellbeing even though it was late and he had been working hard all day and, even though, he himself was feeling ill.

Ghareeb was a big man, well over 6 feet tall, and daily he took many risks to his life helping others. But one thing bothered him more than all these risks to his own life - his father!! His father used to worry constantly about Ghareeb going to dangerous places and taking these risks. Ghareeb told us how his father once discovered that he had been to Najaf, even though Ghareeb had not told him. So Ghareeb was working out ways for his father not to find out again. In the end he bought another sim card for his mobile phone so that he could be rung in the south of Iraq without his father knowing where he was. He didn't even want his beloved family to know the risks he was taking or to be worried about him - he wanted to spare them the stress.

In August the Americans, with their new Iraqi government Allies pounded the besieged Holy City of Najaf, even damaging the Holy Shrines.

When Ghareeb told us we were able to go to Najaf with him to deliver first aid and medical equipment we were very happy. He had been there a few days earlier, when the Italian Red Cross or other powers-that-be had let him down badly with an aid convoy. He was determined to get there with the convoy of aid and he, and several others, had persevered and carried on to the suffering city, so important was their mission.

Two nights before we left Ghareeb was in great pain with a very stiff back and neck. We took him food and fruit - he could barely move his tired, aching body. He slept on the floor that night and the next day he was up and about as usual arranging things for the trip to Najaf the following day. He visited us that evening to check we were ready and packed and to see that we had everything that we needed to go. Enzo Baldini, an Italian, left wing journalist, who we briefly knew through Ghareeb also came with the convoy.

The next morning he picked us up early to go to the Italian Hospital in Medical City from where we would leave for Najaf. We set off in our multi-vehicle convoy of Red Cross vehicles for the long journey south. When we were hit by an RPG/roadside bomb near Lattifya, Ghareeb was seething with anger at who could do this to us. A lorry, the ambulance we were travelling in, and Ghareeb's own car we all badly damaged in the attack, but we continued on our way.

In Najaf, the Americans would not let us pass their lines with the medical supplies to help the injured and suffering. We were very upset about this and wondered what we should do. A kind family let the Italians set up a makeshift hospital in their living room and this was done quickly. But it soon became clear that we would be unable to help very many -- the people being injured and killed in Najaf were the other side of the American line. They could not reach us and we could not get to them.

Ghareeb pondered on this dilemma for some time, there seemed little point in our remaining there, so we went to nearby Kufa to see if we could help there. We spent the day and night there, treated so well by the Mahdi Army and in the evening we opened up a makeshift clinic in one of the rooms of the mosque. Ghareeb worked tirelessly all day with medical supplies and checking that we were all okay and sorted out -- he did not stop. Wejdy translated all day and Helen did what she could to help the female patients. We don't feel that we did that much, but at the end of the evening, Ghareeb gave Helen a little plastic animal dressed as a nurse, because she had been a 'nurse' all evening.

When we sat down to rest after midnight, Ghareeb told Helen that he had brought her to Najaf because she had been in Iraq for almost a year and knew how to behave and be with Iraqis, having learnt how to understand the different way of life. I can't tell you how she felt at this compliment. It was one of the last things we were to hear Ghareeb say.

Bedtime came, we slept in the mosque until 6.30 am. We were woken up, just before leaving. Helen rushed off to wash and did not get to speak to Ghareeb in the hurry to leave, only seeing him briefly across the mosque courtyard. Wejdy spoke to him only quickly. It's a strange thing, but if we had known what was about to happen, surely we would have made the effort to say more, to say something that meant more, or to just thank Ghareeb for his special friendship and for letting us come to Najaf with him, for trusting us that much. But we did not know and those words were left unsaid.

The journey back to Bagdad was tense. It was the only time during the whole trip that we felt scared -- the approach to Lattifya. Then we were hit again. Well, we weren't, Ghareeb's car was. It disappeared in the dirt and dust from another huge explosion. We had only seen him get out at the checkpoints on the way home - we were never to see him again. Enzo was also in this car. His fate was, if possible, more publicly disgusting -- he was captured and later murdered, in video broadcast on the Internet. We did not know what had happened and the Italian Red Cross men did not help us or tell us anything that they knew. We called and called Ghareeb that day and the next when we were in Bagdad, fearing the worst, but hoping that he was just injured lying in some hospital somewhere recovering.

But it was not to be. We lost Ghareeb. Well, we didn't -- the world and Iraq did. And what a loss. So many in Iraq are now worse off because Ghareeb is not here and, as that beautiful country crumbles further and further into chaos and strife, Ghareeb is needed more than ever before. But he is not here and this is hard to bear. His life and his endless work touched so many. So many miss him and mourn his passing, so many people needed him.

Ghareeb's body has not been found. Rumours and speculation abound as to where he may be. This is torture for his loving family. If his body was not found, they cannot bury it. And their worst fear is that Ghareeb may end up being buried by strangers in some unmarked grave, and they may never know where he is. They need to lay Ghareeb to rest next to his daughter – without this happening their suffering and the turmoil they feel in their lives will only continue. We cannot imagine the anguish and desperate sense of loss and pain they must be experiencing right now.

For us personally, the loss has been sorely felt. We are heartbroken. For weeks every white car that pulled up outside our appartment made us think of and hope it was, somehow, Ghareeb. We hoped for weeks that it was not true, that he would turn up and come back into our lives and visit us again for some tea and a chat. But it wasn't to be and we, like so many others, have to get used to the loss of our dear friend, however much it hurts us.

Helen and Wejdy