Handicapped boy who was made into a bomb - After Saddam - www.smh.com.au
Amar Ahmed Mohammed was 19 years old. But the fact that he had the mind of a four-year-old did not stop the insurgency’s hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan.
[…]
Unlike the hundreds of others in the region who knowingly volunteered for an explosive death, Amar died because he did not know. He had Down syndrome.
On most days, Amar would slip out of his parents’ house and wander the streets of the Al-Askan neighbourhood until dusk when, usually, a friend or neighbour would bring him home. On Sunday, when his parents, Ahmed, 42, and Fatima, 40, went to vote with their two daughters, they left him at home as usual.
[…]
One of Amar’s cousins, a 29-year-old teacher who asked not to be named, claimed the insurgents must have kidnapped him. “He was like a baby,” he said. “He had nothing to do with the resistance and there was nothing in the house for him to make a bomb. He was Shiite - why bomb his own people?”
[…]
“I have heard of them using dead people and donkeys and dogs to hide their bombs, but how could they do this to a boy like Amar?”
Apparently, Amar triggered the bomb before he got to the intended target. No one else was hurt or killed.
Amar Ahmed Mohammed was 19 years old. But the fact that he had the mind of a four-year-old did not stop the insurgency’s hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan.
[…]
Unlike the hundreds of others in the region who knowingly volunteered for an explosive death, Amar died because he did not know. He had Down syndrome.
On most days, Amar would slip out of his parents’ house and wander the streets of the Al-Askan neighbourhood until dusk when, usually, a friend or neighbour would bring him home. On Sunday, when his parents, Ahmed, 42, and Fatima, 40, went to vote with their two daughters, they left him at home as usual.
[…]
One of Amar’s cousins, a 29-year-old teacher who asked not to be named, claimed the insurgents must have kidnapped him. “He was like a baby,” he said. “He had nothing to do with the resistance and there was nothing in the house for him to make a bomb. He was Shiite - why bomb his own people?”
[…]
“I have heard of them using dead people and donkeys and dogs to hide their bombs, but how could they do this to a boy like Amar?”
Apparently, Amar triggered the bomb before he got to the intended target. No one else was hurt or killed.
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