Victims of Another Kind - Iraq's Mentally Ill

Carolyn Cole

Los Angeles Times

At the Al Rashid Psychiatric Hospital, the plight of female patients went from horrible to horrifying as the war took its toll in early April 2003. On April 9th, when U.S. forces arrived in Baghdad, chaos erupted as looters rampaged the city. No one could stop them as they stole chairs, tables, and whatever else they could carry from the hospital. Some patients ran away, while other were beaten and raped according to hospital staff members. For those that remained, there was next to nothing to eat or drink. Help finally arrived, but not soon enough. The mentally ill suffered a war of another kind. A woman holds her head in frustration. Conditions at the women's facility reached a low point when chaos erupted in Baghdad the day after the American's took control.

Carolyn Cole, "Victims of Another Kind - Iraq's Mentally Ill," in POYi Archive, Item #34387, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/34387 (accessed November 23, 2024).