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View Full Version : In Pictures: Vivian's story (Baghdad widow)



solid_snake
04-22-2006, 10:38 PM



One year ago, Vivian Salem Mate lost her husband Nasim and three children - Husam, 15, Wasim, 12 and Merna, 6, - when an American tank shelled their car as the family attempted to flee heavy fighting in Baghdad.

Since then she has struggled to rebuild her life, but can't forgive the Americans for killing her family.

"If they want the oil, they can take it. Is it worth more than my children? They didn't even leave me one," she says.


After the loss of her family, Vivian had to sell her home and move in with her parents.

Vivian and her brother were the only ones to escape alive from the car when it came under fire from a US tank.


Vivian worked as an accountant at the Ministry of Finance from 1985-1991.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, her wages were very low, so she gave up work to spend more time at home with her husband and children.

In October 2003 Vivian went back to work in the accounting department of a local hospital.


Vivian says work is a way of forgetting her grief.

She earns more money in her new job, but her salary is not high as it is her first year at the hospital.


The wrecked family car, riddled with bullet holes, now sits outside Vivian's brother's house.

Vivian says she finds it very difficult to look at the car.

The family were hit by fire from a US tank as they tried to flee fighting near their home in Yarmuk district.


Vivian had to bury her husband and children in an old, delapidated Christian cemetery as her traditional family plot is in a now dangerous area of Baghdad.

When the security situation improves, Vivian wants to move their remains to the family mausoleum.


Vivian and her family are Assyrian Catholics. When her husband and children were killed, people from the newly-formed Evangelical Baptist Church came to console her.

Since then she has regularly attended baptist services with her remaining family.


"Before, when I had my family I didn't have time to go to church often.

"Now, I don't have so much to do, I go to church three or four times a week. The people in the church have helped me a lot. It feels like a big family.

"I hope my family are now angels in heaven, and when I die I will see them again."

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afriend
04-22-2006, 10:42 PM
Hmmm......

Well peace to her for loosing her family...Sad Americans.......drinking the oil filled with blood...
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Rabi'ya
04-24-2006, 02:13 PM
:sl:

this is truly awful, i cant imagine losing my family..let alone kids and huabsnd and to be left with so little.

My thoughts are surely with this woman....as well as all the others who have lost loved ones in iraq and other countries at war...

Its a sad world we live in...

:w:

Rabi'ya:rose:
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