Call brings tragedy of war home

By NATASHA HARRIS

When Aneese Alinizi phoned his sister-in-law in Baghdad he got the news he had dreaded.

His two nephews, conscripts in Iraq's Army, were missing, presumed dead, in a cruise missile attack on the al-Shird camp on Saturday afternoon.

The brothers, Amar, 18, and Nasweer, 20, were in the Army as part of the country's compulsory military training programme.

Amar had been enlisted for just three months and Nasweer had one more year to go before he could leave.

Mr Alinizi, of Tawa, Wellington, who has lived in New Zealand for nine years, said the boys lived at home and would commute to the camp and return home at 4pm daily to look after their widowed mother.

"She is very sad and now she has no one to look after her ... she has to go to work now but women find it very difficult to find a job - there's no freedom like New Zealand."

Mr Alinizi, 50, was concerned about his sister-in-law as diabetes had crippled her.

"She cannot see and she cannot walk as she has no more medicine. Nobody is looking after her now as the boys used to look after her."

She has four other children, two girls and two boys, but they were too young to work.

Mr Alinizi has not been able to contact the rest of the family. "I have a younger brother in Baghdad and I don't know what happened to him. I call him 100 times but I can't get through.

"My city, Najas, was bombed today and I can't get through to my little daughter ... my three sisters, two brothers, mother and all my cousins are there."

Mr Alinizi's 13-year-old daughter was left in Najas because she was too sick to come to New Zealand with her father and five brothers and sisters, nine years ago.

He said he "loves New Zealand people", especially for protesting against the war.

"I saw the people in the protests and I think they feel what we feel - they don't like the blood and they don't like to kill innocent people."