Families yesterday continue to leave Basra, Iraq, across one of the town's bridges manned by British soldiers. - ReutersAMMAN, Jordan (AP):
BRUISED AND bleeding, in need of medical care, a group of Americans stranded in Iraq's western desert approached a mud-brick town and found the hospital destroyed by bombs.
Why? Why? a doctor demanded of them. Why did you Americans bomb our children's hospital? Scores of Iraqi townspeople crowded around.
The American peace activists' account was the first confirmation of a report last week that a hospital in Rutbah was bombed Wednesday, with dead and injured. The travellers said they saw no significant Iraqi military presence near the hospital or elsewhere in Rutbah. The doctor did not discuss casualties, the Americans said.
United States Central Command said yesterday it had no knowledge of a hospital bombing in Rutbah. The U.S. military has said it is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties in its campaign to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
For the battered band of peace activists, recounting their nerve-jarring exit from Iraq yesterday, it was one of the worst moments in 10 days of war. That exit had begun at 9:15 a.m. Saturday, when a dozen foreigners, eight Americans and one Irish member of the Iraq Peace Team, and three unaffiliated Japanese and South Korean activists set out from Baghdad on the 300-mile (480-kilometre) trek to the western border with Jordan, through a nation at war.
Members of the anti-war group have shuttled in and out of the Iraqi capital for months to take part in vigils, small demonstrations and other activities to protest U.S. war plans. Since March 20, they have borne witness and compiled reports on the U.S. bombing of Baghdad.
