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Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire
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Salman looked back and saw Abbas pushing open his door. As he stepped out, he was shot multiple times. Moments later, weakened by his wounds, Salman passed out.
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People 'Trying to Save Themselves'
About half a mile away, traffic police officer Hussam Abdul Rahman, 25, heard his co-worker Thiab's frantic voice over the radio asking for backup and ambulances. So he drove his motorcycle toward Nisoor Square from the west. As he neared dozens of stalled cars, he swerved to avoid gunfire and was thrown off the motorcycle, scraping his left elbow. He hid behind a concrete barrier, watching the chaos unfold.
"Whoever stepped out of his car was shot at immediately," Rahman said.
He saw the Blackwater guards firing at a red bus. In their statements, one guard said they were coming under fire from the bus. Rahman disputed this account, saying the passengers were breaking windows to jump out.
"People were trying to save themselves," he said.
After the convoy sped away, Rahman recognized an olive-green car with the driver's door open. The seat was empty. The car belonged to his cousin Mahdi Sahib, a taxi driver.
The short, mustachioed soccer fan's 10-member family lived off Sahib's $480 monthly income. Too poor to fix a broken windshield wiper, he had wrapped a ball of pink cloth at the tip of the rod.
"All his hopes in life were to get married," said his brother Ali Sahib, 23. "But he could never afford it."
Rahman called his cousin's cellphone. A stranger answered and informed him that Sahib had been injured. Rahman found him at a hospital in the Kadimiyah neighborhood, shot through his upper left side and bleeding internally.
The motorcycle of Ali Khalil, the blacksmith, was found at the edge of the square. He had been shot several times in the chest and taken, still alive, to Yarmouk Hospital, said Khalaf, the traffic officer.
Before he left that morning, recalled his wife, Fawzia Sharif, their grandson had woken up. Khalil had picked him up and kissed him. "Grandson, I am so happy I have seen you before I leave," he said.
Hospital Scenes of Sadness and Loss
After the shooting stopped, Zina Fadhil cautiously walked out of her pharmacy. Cars with blown-out tires were moving slowly. For a few minutes, an eerie silence filled the air. Then she saw police pickup trucks fly by, carrying the wounded and dead, stacked on top of one another.
