Diary of Dr Saad Eskander
Today, when I was catching up with my daily feeds, my eye caught this story about an Iraqi minister of the Iraqi National Library and Archives (INLA). He started writing a blog in november 2006. It’s basically his diary, published by the British Library.
I started reading the entries for february and was caught. The life that unfolds on these pages is, for me, extremely fascinating, and worrying. I was fascinated by the story, since he details how life is in Bagdad right now and what he is doing in order to keep the INLA running and assuring the safety of his staff. It baffels me how people can live with such violence surrounding them…
After I had read the february entries, I read the rest of them too. He has some statistics about sectarian violence that his staff has had to endure and due to the New Security Plan, which was implemented in february, the violence has drastically dropped. So there’s hope in the february entries, which is good to have when you read the entries before that!
Here are som excerpts from his blog:
13 November, 2006
I received bad news, as soon as I arrived to my office. In my absent, INLA was bombed twice and snipers’ bullets broke several windows. Fortunately, no body was hurt. My staff withheld these information from me, when I contacted them. They claimed that they did not want me to be worried and to spoil my visit.
Diary for the Week 16-21 Dec.
My staff received their monthly salaries on Thursday, owing to the bravery of two of my employees, who work at the Accountancy Department. The two young women transferred the salaries (81 Millions Dinar = US$60,000) from the Bank to our building in secret. It took them five days to complete the operation. The Bank is located in a dangerous area, where the terrorists can attack at any moment.
31 January, 2007
A huge explosion shock our building. I hurriedly went to the second floor and saw a thick black smock rising from a car in al-Bab al-Mudham round-about (200 meters away from the NLA). I asked the security to prevent all members of staff from going outside the building, fearing that there might be another car-bomb. I learnt later that around 15 people were either killed or injured in the explosion. Among the victims were shoppers, passengers and drivers.
12 Febryary, 2007
Before leaving the building, I met Miss Ma., who lost her brother few weeks ago. She wept as soon as I offered her my condolences. She told me that her family decided to leave Baghdad permanently and live in Basra in the south. I promised to help as much as I could, and wished her good luck.
I highly recommend to read it! It certainly helped me gain some perspective on my life and my problems. They don’t seem that big now.
Link to the blog: http://www.bl.uk/iraqdiary.html