- BAGHDAD -- The clothes eight-year-old
Ali Fadhil was wearing when he was grabbed by kidnappers from the street
near his home in the wealthy Zayouna neighbourhood of Baghdad were left
outside his mother's door on Friday. She had washed them overnight before
showing them to us yesterday - a pale blue Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and
tracksuit bottoms.
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- They were filthy when she found them, stinking from her
youngest son's captivity, somewhere in the city. But it was her first intimation
in two weeks that Ali might still be alive.
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- Wafa Fadhil has all but given up hope that police can
find him. Instead she is gathering the money being demanded for his release:
'five books' - Baghdad slang for $50,000 - is the going rate for kidnapped
children. Anecdotal evidence suggests most gangs settle for $15,000. 'We
will negotiate, of course,' she said, 'but we will pay the money. We will
do anything to secure his release.'
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- As we speak, an elder son sits by her. Fourteen-year-old
Isa Fadhil knows all about the kidnap gangs that roam this city, targeting
the children of the wealthy, the moderately wealthy or families of those
with whom they have a grudge. For he too has been kidnapped.
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- The Fadhils feel their five children are under siege.
What is clear is that someone is desperate to get their money - and they
are targeting the children to get it.
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- Although Wafa's husband is the owner of a metal-turning
factory, the couple believe it is their inheritance of his dead mother's
land and apartment that has triggered the kidnappings.
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- The abduction of Isa in December coincided with the sale
of some land; the second, of Ali, with the sale of the apartment. This
has convinced them the gang has a knowledge of their affairs.
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- 'I was walking to my uncle's house to join my cousins
to go to school at 7am,' said Isa of his abduction.
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- 'Some men drove by in a microbus. They said they had
business with my uncle and offered me a lift. When I got in the car, one
drew a gun and they took me to Al-Thawra [the vast poverty-stricken Shia
area on the outskirts of Baghdad].'
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- Left in a building, Isa crawled through a broken fan
vent at 3am and ran for help. Now the same gang, the family believes, has
taken their youngest.
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- 'I was out of the house,' said Wafa. 'Ali had gone to
a shop. When he didn't come back we feared the worst. We checked the hospitals
and police stations. And then we had a call. They said they had him. That
he was sick. And that we were not to call the police or make a fuss.'
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- Wafa did call the police - and when the kidnappers called
back, after midnight, they knew that she had. That was on 13 February,
the last time they heard from the gang before their son's clothes were
dumped at the door.
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- In the central Saadoun police station, the case is one
of five such being handled by First Lieutenant Hadi Mahdi. He has a theory
to explain the sudden surge in kidnappings that began last autumn, forcing
the police to post officers at schools. Most families settle without police
intervention.
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- 'In the chaos after the war there were a lot of robberies
and particularly carjackings. Now that police are much more visible on
the streets, the gangs have turned from carjacking to kidnapping,' he explains.
'Stealing a child is a safer bet.'
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- For Wafa Fadhil there is some hope that her child may
be rescued. In recent weeks Mahdi and his colleagues have - as they put
it - liberated two children. But not without a cost.
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- Rafi Imad Jabra is 11. He was rescued on 16 February
after being held for seven days in a chicken cage in a house in the Al
Ameen district. During his captivity he was raped by one of his abductors.
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- Rafi was playing in the street when he was seized by
four men in a Toyota Corolla.
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- Like many targets of abduction in Baghdad, Rafi is a
Christian, whose father owns a liquor store. The Christians, so the gangs
have rationalised, lack the tribal bonds binding many Iraqis and are thus
a safer target from revenge.
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- Rafi was fortunate that a local charity, the Society
for Saving the Children of Iraq, found someone who had seen the abduction
and who could identify the men. Police were led finally to an alleyway
with houses owned by two brothers.
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- 'We found the boy handcuffed and hidden in a chicken
cage that had been covered with sheets to disguise it,' said Mahdi. 'The
gang fired on us as we broke in to get the boy, and we were forced to fire
back. It must have been terrifying for him. When we got him he just kept
trying to sit down. He couldn't stand.'
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- In this deeply conservative society, what has shocked
the police as much as the kidnapping is that there were women in the house.
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- 'We sat Rafi on one of our cars where everyone could
see him and let him fire one of our guns in the air,' said Mahdi. 'Then
we gathered the neighbours and told them that these women had allowed a
kidnapped boy to be hidden there and it was shameful. We said to the women:
"How could you allow a boy to be treated like this and deprive his
parents of him?" I said we were now taking their sons away from them
for a long time.'
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- The wider involvement of women is part of a worrying
new pattern in crime in Iraq. They are used by the same gangs, say police,
to carry out surveillance of kidnap targets.
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- Hassan Jamal, the director of the society that provided
the tip-off that led to Rafi's release, is concerned that children are
not only being kidnapped for money, but that some are being seized for
sexual exploitation.
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- 'There are hotels we have heard of where children are
being held for sex,' he said. 'We are involved with the police in investigating
gangs involved in that.'
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- For Wafa Fadhil, Ali's kidnapping has convinced her of
one thing: 'When we get him back I am taking my family and I am leaving
here. I will go to Syria or Lebanon. But I will not stay in Iraq.'
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1158675,00.html
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