Car bomb kills at least 26 in Iraq

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C3A2E139-40B7-4DB1-9CF9-028E543DAD32.htm

Sunday 30 October 2005, 3:43 Makka Time, 0:43 GMT

The bomb in the village of Huweder, located about 70km northeast of Baghdad, exploded as villagers were heading for the mosque for prayers or breaking their Ramadan fast outdoors in the cool evening breeze.

"It felt as if the earth was shaking underneath our feet," said Hussain Mouwaffaq, whose brother Qahtan was killed in the blast. "The street was strewn with dates. Many people were killed and injured."

Police Lieutenant Ahmad Abd al-Wahab, who gave the casualty figure, said the number of deaths may increase because several of the survivors suffered critical injuries.

At the hospital in nearby Baqouba, seriously injured victims lay on stretchers on a floor smeared with blood as doctors and nurses in bloodstained white coats scurried about, trying to cope. Distraught relatives helped by holding intravenous bottles beside their loved ones' beds. On one bed, a child lay motionlessly, a bandage covering his knee as a man sobbed next to him. One badly burned man wiggled in dreadful agony on a stretcher as gilstening red blood ran down his blast-blackened skin.

Perhaps, if they knew what was happening, people would be moved to change things. Stories like this leave me sick at heart and wondering what has happened to the country of my birth. This continuing nightmare in Iraq has the potential to be even worse than Viet Nam.