Fadhil Story

At the last day of Ramadan, Sa’ad and other three young colleagues who work for Sader office loaded a car with kids dresses and went to Fadhil neighborhood in Baghdad to distribute them there among kids for Eid celebration.

Sa’ad like most of the Baghdadies knew about the ongoing fight between Mahdi army which is loyal to Sayed Muqtada Al-Sader and fadhil neighbourhood, one of the oldest neighbourhood in Baghdad, the majority there is Sunni.

The fight which began few months ago left a lot of causalities from both sides, Sunni who live in Sheikh Omer fled the place because of Mahdi army threats and because they could not continue their works there any more and Shiite who live in Fadhil went to Sader city for the same reason.

But Sa’ad insisted to take a car belongs to Sader office and go there to distribute dresses among kids there for Eid holiday.

Sa’ad family, particularly his mother who has only him and his wife with his five kids asked him not to go because the situation is very risky and no one will believe that he comes for the sake of the kids, but he believed that he was doing something good and he will survive.

On Monday Sa’ad went with his three colleagues to Fadhil neighbourhood and began to tour the place and grant kids with gifts from Sader, but they were stopped by an armed man who asked them what they were doing there?

They told him that they came to give these presents to the kids from Sader office but before sa’ad complete his sentence eight bullets went in his leg and a another in his heart.

His friend who was trying to help him were shot in the head too and so as the other two, within few minutes all of them were dead.

The armed men came to put them all in the car and put fire in their bodies but the people in the neighbourhood protested and condemned his act so he began to shoot in the air and ranaway.

At the first day of the Eid, Sa’ad funeral was set up in Sader city as well as for his other three colleagues.

His uncle told me,” I do not know what happened to us we Iraqis, I swear Sa’ad intention was good, he did not mean something bad, but do you know the three Sunni families who still live in our neighbourhood came to Sa’ad funeral to console me and Sa’d mother. They were receiving the mourners.”

I have talked with some people who live in Fadhil neighbourhood and asked them about Sa’ad and his other three colleagues who were killed there.

I told them that his uncle said that the fourth guys went to Fadhil at the first day of Ied for Sunni there to distribute presents and dressed among the kids but they were shot dead.

The people of Fadhil had another version for the incident which was absolutely different than the Shiite uncle story.

The people there said it was well-known to everybody in Baghdad the sensitive relation between the people of this neighbourhood and Mahdi army who used to come to their neighbourhood to kidnap and kill and that they even killed one of the prominent figure in this neighbourhood who was trying to reach an agreement with Mahdi army.

What the people there said, at the first day of Ied, large number of kids from Fadhil neighbourhood went to a park there were there are some games for them like swings and slipping ladders as most of the kids do in such occasion.

After few hours, a BMW car with four guys inside arrived to the scene and start to shoot against the crowd, they killed four kids and young man and wounded other eight.

One of the men told me what do you expect the people do there, just keep watching more people to be killed, they did what they supposed to do which was to kill the four of them before they kill more innocent people.