The Four Ubaidi Brothers

Iraq

Muahmmed, Ahmed, Ali and Salah are four brothers from a Sunni family, the eldest is in his mid thirties and the others are younger then him, their tribe is Ubaidi, like most of the fathers in Iraq now, their father left to Syria few weeks ago to rent a house there and take the entire family, the mother and four daughters.

Four days ago, the sisters were sleeping down stairs while the four brothers were upstairs like everyday preparing themselves for another fasting day in Ramadan.

At six am, the house raided by more than fifty militia men, some of them were wearing uniforms of the ministry of Interior, others were civilians carrying RPGS and equipped with different kinds of weapons and ministry of Interior cars.

The house lies in Al-Qahera district, a place dominated by Mahdi army and Bader brigade, they were the only Sunni family in their neighbourhood but they were living there for more than 35 year.

In new Iraq, even the most beautiful neighbouring relations were destroyed by hatred nourished by the new comers who want to have a democratic federal state.

All of a sudden, the four girls and the mother found a crowd of militiamen inside their rooms, pulling them from their hairs and beating them severely asking about their names one by one.

Then, the leader of the militia ordered his men “ Rape them.”

When the girls heard that, they began to shout and fight with the militiamen with all power they got at that moment, shouts were getting louder, the four brothers went down to see what was going on?

As soon as they reached down stairs, they were surrounded by militiamen who turned towards them and began to beat them with their guns and hands and dragged them out of the house to put them in their cars and ran away.

The girls and the mother began to ring their uncles and relatives asking for help, soon three of their cousins arrived to see what was going on? Again the militiamen arrived, at that time, the three cousins knew they would be killed because they could not fight an army.

One of them hid at the water tanker on the roof, the other jumped from the roof and two of his legs were broken, the third fell in their hands, they began to beat him all over his body while he was trying to explain to them, till the aunt arrived who was an old woman and began to shout on the face of the militiamen, “ come and kill me, Iam their aunt, we are a huge tribe, we are Ubaidi, we won’t leave you without revenge.”

One of the militiamen told here, “ Are you Ubaidi, Iam Ubaidi too but Iam Shiite.” He told the other militiamen to leave the third cousin because they had done enough.

The four brothers were taken to a house in Hay Ur in Baghdad where they found a lot of Sunni who have been captured in the same way and tortured sessions were going on.

One of the men came to the four brothers with a basket full of pieces of papers and asked each one of them to pick up one, when they did that, he ordered them to read what was written on the paper.

The first brother his paper was reading “ to be killed with an iron piece and drills.”

The second, “ to be killed by cutting his fingers and then to be shot.”

The third, “ to be killed with six bullets in different places in the body after a course of torture.”

The fourth, “ To be killed by putting a plastic bag on his back and burned coals on his body.”

The torture started with the first brother, the militiaman picked up a heavy metal piece and began to beat him everywhere in his body, the youngest brother shouted on the man, “ I beg you come and kill me, he has heart disease and cant stand that.”

But the eldest brother fell immediately after receiving a big blow on his face and blood flooded from his mouth.

After carrying out all what the papers said, the four brothers were thrown at the Forensic Department of the ministry of health which is control by Mahdi army.

The moment the relatives of the family arrived, they knew that the only place they can find the four brothers is the Forensic Department, so they ran there immediately.

They found three of the four brothers, one has six bullets in his body, the other his finger is cut and a bullet in his back, the third his back is burned with plastic bag and coals, all of them were in coma.

They carried them to the hospital, but one of the uncles came running telling them to take them out because if the militia knew they are still alive they will shoot them in the hospital.

So the uncle took them to his house while they were dying, but after an hour, he found many cars with men wearing uniform of the ministry of Interior accusing him of hiding terrorists.

They went inside the house and found the three brothers in the agony, the uncle said, “ You see this woman who is crying on my dying nephews, she is my daughter in law, she is Shiite from Najef and Iam Sunni.”

Some of the relatives waited at the forensic department to pick up the body of the eldest brother, they went to one of the doctors there and asked him to submit them the body, the doctor looked at them and said, “ Are you Sunni?”

They said, “ Yes.”, he told them, “ Are you crazy to go and collect the body by yourselves, the militia are waiting near the body and once they know he belongs to you, you will be kidnapped and killed too, go and bring a Shiite man.”

The relatives went to some of their Shiite sons in law to come and collect the body but when they arrived at the forensic department, they did not find the body.

A shitte Mula who claim doing work for the sake of God, took the body with so many other bodies and loaded them in a lorry to Kerbala and Najef as he does every day to cover the crime of Mahdi army.

The family returned home to make a funeral for Muhammed without knowing where is he buried and they do not dare to go to Najef or Karbala because they will be killed too.