Last night, I stayed awake, I am suffering from insomnia, there are a lot of things I think about, and most of the days I don't sleep immediately I spend an hour or two laying till I sleep, I walked towards the window and was watching the neighborhood, it was dark (the electricity was off), empty, and scary, like a ghost city, and I started to remember how crowded my neighborhood and it's street were, I am glad I didn’t forget that, anyway I came back to my bed and there was sound of far shelling, after an hour or two, mortars erupted from the neighborhood , and we heard 3 near by explosions..<more>
From A Star from Mosul, written by a young woman who is an engineering student:
When my cousin drives me, I feel the need to keep talking, I just hate the silence. But because of my deep depression, and to keep myself from crying, I didn't talk much this time.. I concentrated on the road, something I rarely do (I still haven't learned the way to my school, I can't get my brain to concentrate on roads at all). I couldn't believe all the wreckage on the way.. Building after building, destoyed, burnt.. Black signs announcing deaths.. Smoke from a new explosion. We had to stop few times to clear the road for the police or the Americans.
I asked my cousin about a destroyed building I haven't seen before, he said it was months ago.. I was shocked; I didn't ask about the ones that followed. <>more>
From Last of Iraqis, by a 25 year old dentist in Baghdad:
About 1,000,000 deaths and 1,500,000 Injured Iraqi civilians since the beginning of the war in 2003 , an estimation of 4,000,000 Iraqis have been displaced with 2,200,000 fled out of the country and the rest are refugees inside their own torn country (I believe the real number of Iraqis outside Iraq is greater than this).
Great numbers , right? a lot of zeros , a lot of grief and sadness , a lot of humiliation , a lot of black clothes , rivers of tears and many shocking stories , it's not just numbers . Just count all the people you knew throughout your life , not only the ones you talk to , but all the people you know, what their count will be?500 or may be 1000? let's say 1000. Can you imagine that all the people you know are only 0.1% of the civilian casualties in Iraq. <>more>
Of the Iraqi bloggers, there are not many left - many have stopped blogging, many have left Iraq, some still write from wherever they are. These three are still there. Via BBC.
