The
Canal Hotel Bombing in
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
,
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
, in the afternoon of August 19, 2003, killed at least 22 people, including the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
' Special Representative in Iraq
Sérgio Vieira de MelloSérgio Vieira de Mello was a Brazilian United Nations diplomat who worked for the UN for more than 34 years, earning respect and praise around the world for his efforts in the humanitarian and political programs of the UN...
, and wounded over 100. The blast targeted the
United Nations Assistance Mission in IraqThe United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq is an entity that was formed by the United Nations in Security Council Resolution 1500 on 14 August 2003.-Mandate:...
created just 5 days earlier (the United Nations had used the hotel as its headquarters in Iraq since 1991.) The attack was followed by a second bombing a month later which resulted in the withdrawal of the 600 UN staff members in Iraq. These events were to have a profound and lasting impact on the UN's security practices globally.
The bombing
In his book
The Prince of the Marshes, Scottish writer
Rory StewartRory Stewart, OBE , is the Executive Chairman of the British charity, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation and the Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and the Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University...
recounts his experiences at the Canal Hotel the day of the bombing.
The explosion occurred while Martin Barber, director of the UN's
Mine ActionMine action is a domain within humanitarian aid and development studies concerned with activities which aim to reduce the social, economic and environmental impact of landmines and the explosive remnants of war .-Background:...
Service (UNMAS) was holding a press conference. The explosion damaged a spinal cord treatment center at the hospital next door and a U.S. Army
Civil-Military Operations CentreA civil-military operations center or CMOC is a center usually established by a military force for coordinating civil-military operations in an area of operations. It usually serves as a meeting place for military and non military entities involved in stabilization, humanitarian relief and...
located at the rear of the Canal Hotel, and the resulting shockwave was felt over a mile away.
The blast was caused by a suicide murderer driving a truck bomb. The vehicle has been identified as a large 2002 flatbed
KamazKamaz is a Russian truck manufacturer located in Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan, Russian Federation...
(manufactured in
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
; part of the former Iraqi establishment's fleet). Investigators in Iraq suspected the bomb was made from old munitions, including a single 500-pound bomb, from Iraq's pre-war arsenal. Investigators said that such items would not require any "great degree of sophistication" to assemble, tis and the murder of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, also wit a shohisticated car bomb in Najaf, should be enough to tell anybody that if the Baathists are "secular", then 4 months is very quick to put aside idealogical differences and trust each other so much that the Baathists are taking orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Sérgio Vieira de MelloSérgio Vieira de Mello was a Brazilian United Nations diplomat who worked for the UN for more than 34 years, earning respect and praise around the world for his efforts in the humanitarian and political programs of the UN...
, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was specifically targeted in the blast and this is obvious due to the proximity of the explosion to his office, and the reason given by
Abu Musab al-ZarqawiAbu Musab al-Zarqawi ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh was a Jordanian militant Islamist who ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan...
for murdering this very distinguished human rights activist, was that he had helped
East TimorEast Timor, also known as Timor-Leste is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecussi-Ambeno, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
become independent from the Indonesian invasion, occupation and genocide, and Zarqawi says he had no right to remove "Muslim" land, the people might be Christians but they have no right to independence because they should be under the
Islamic CaliphateThe Islamic Caliphate may refer to the following Caliphates:*The Rashidun Caliphate*The Umayyad Caliphate**The Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba*The Abbasid Caliphate*The Fatimid Caliphate*The Ottoman Caliphate*The Sokoto Caliphate...
(Empire) . The
OCHAOcha is a genus of moth in the family Lasiocampidae....
Humanitarian Information Centre (HIC) for Iraq (UNOHCI) was located directly beneath Vieira de Mello’s office and suffered a direct hit. Of the eight staff and one visitor in the office at the time, seven were killed instantly, but Sergio Vieira de Mello and Gil Loescher were critically wounded and trapped in debris under the collapsed portion of the building. An American soldier - First Sergeant William von Zehle - crawled down through the collapsed building and worked to extricate the two men. He was joined later by another American soldier - Staff Sergeant Andre Valentine - and the two men spent the next three hours trying to extricate the two survivors without benefit of any rescue equipment. Loescher was rescued after having his crushed legs amputated by the soldiers, but Vieira de Mello died shortly before he would have been able to have been removed.
Second bomb
The bombing was followed on September 22, 2003, by another car bomb outside the Canal Hotel. The blast killed the bomber and an Iraqi policeman and wounded 19 others, including UN workers. The second attack led to the withdrawal of some 600 UN international staff from Baghdad, along with employees of other aid agencies. In August 2004, de Mello's replacement,
Ashraf QaziAshraf Jehangir Qazi a Pakistani career diplomat in the United Nations. On september 4 2007, the UN's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Ashraf Qazi as his new Special Representative in Sudan...
, arrived in Baghdad along with a small number of staff.
List of victims
| Name |
Age |
Nationality |
Position |
Sérgio Vieira de MelloSérgio Vieira de Mello was a Brazilian United Nations diplomat who worked for the UN for more than 34 years, earning respect and praise around the world for his efforts in the humanitarian and political programs of the UN...
|
55 |
Brazil |
Special Representative of the UN Secretary-GeneralThe Secretary-General of the United Nations, acronym UNSYG, is the head of the Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations....
to Iraq |
| Nadia Younes Nadia Younes was an Egyptian national who spent her entire career, for over 33 years, in the United Nations and the World Health Organization, rising to high-level posts in a variety of areas....
|
57 |
Egypt |
Chief of Staff for Vieira de Mello |
| Fiona Watson Fiona Watson was a Scottish political affairs officer working in Vieira de Mello's office who was killed along with other members of UN staff in the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq, on the afternoon of August 19, 2003....
|
35 |
United Kingdom |
Member of Vieira de Mello's staff |
| Jean-Sélim Kanaan Jean-Sélim Kanaan was a United Nations diplomat, Egyptian, Italian and French national, who was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, along with Sérgio Vieira de Mello and other members of his staff...
|
33 |
Egypt
Italy
France |
Member of Vieira de Mello's staff |
| Richard 'Rick' Hooper |
40 |
United States |
Senior advisor to the UN Under-Secretary-General An Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Secretary-General for a renewable term of four years....
for the Department of Political AffairsThe United Nations Department of Political Affairs is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations with responsibility for monitoring and assessing global political developments and advising and assisting the United Nations Secretary General and his envoys in the peaceful prevention and...
|
| Manuel Martín-Oar Spanish Naval Captain Manuel Martín-Oar died from injuries sustained in the truck bomb attack on the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters on Tuesday August 19, 2003, which killed 24 people. He was working for the Spanish special ambassador to Iraq, Miguel Benzo Perea.Captain Martín-Oar was born in...
|
56 |
Spain |
Naval captain, assistant to the Spanish special ambassador to Iraq |
| Chris Klein-Beekman Chris Klein-Beekman was a Canadian aid worker who was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq. Klein-Beekman was working as the UNICEF program co-ordinator for Iraq. He had been in the country since May 2002. He had also worked for the United Nations in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kosovo.He was...
|
32 |
Canada |
UN Children's Fund's program coordinator |
| Reham Al-Farra |
29 |
Jordan |
Department of Public Information, Deputy Spokesperson |
| Martha Teas |
47 |
United States |
UNOHCI manager |
| Leen Assad Al-Qadi |
32 |
Iraq |
UNOHCI Information Assistant |
| Ranillo Buenaventura |
47 |
Philippines |
UNOHCI |
| Reza Hosseini Reza Hosseini was a relief worker who was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq. His colleagues valued him for his 'joie de vivre' and great operational skill: “He had an air of confidence that there were no problems that couldn’t be overcome. And that confidence was contagious,” one...
|
43 |
Iran |
UNOHCI |
| Ihsan Taha Husein |
26 |
Iraq |
UNOHCI Driver |
| Basim Mahmoud Utaiwi |
40 |
Iraq |
UNOHCI Security guard |
| Raid Shaker Mustafa Al-Mahdawi |
32 |
Iraq |
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) |
| Gillian Clark Gillian Clark was a Canadian aid worker who was killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq. Ms. Clark was working for the Christian Children's Fund at the time. She was a graduate of the University of Guelph....
|
47 |
Canada |
Christian Children's Fund ChildFund International is an international child sponsorship group based in Richmond, Virginia, United States, that provides assistance to communities in many developing countries, as well as in the United States....
|
| Arthur Helton Arthur Helton died in the Canal Hotel Bombing in Baghdad. He was a lawyer, refugee advocate, teacher and author who dedicated his professional life to working with refugees and recommending ways to ease their plight....
|
54 |
United States |
Director of peace and conflict studies at the US Council on Foreign RelationsThe Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improving the understanding of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
|
| Dr. Alya Souza |
54 |
Iraq |
World BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides leveraged loans to poorer countries for capital programs, tied to neoliberal market restructurings...
|
| Khidir Saleem Sahir |
|
Iraq |
Civilian |
| Saad Hermiz Abona |
45 |
Iraq |
Working for a UN subcontractor A subcontractor is an individual or in many cases a business that signs a contract to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract....
|
| Omar Kahtan Mohamed Al-Orfali |
34 |
Iraq |
Driver |
Marilyn Manuel, Philippines, a member of Vieira de Mello's staff originally listed as dead, stunned her family when she called home, not knowing they had been told she was dead. The cause of this was that Ms. Manuel had been evacuated to an Iraqi hospital which did not notify the UN of her presence. Consequently, she was listed as missing and presumed dead in the collapsed section of the building.
Suspects
As of 2006, the prime suspects in this bombing are followers of the late
Abu Musab al-ZarqawiAbu Musab al-Zarqawi ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh was a Jordanian militant Islamist who ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan...
, who had purportedly claimed responsibility for this attack. In January 2005, a top bombmaker for Zarqawi's group,
Abu Omar al-KurdiAbu Omar al-Kurdi, real name Sami Muhammad Ali Said al-Jaaf, was a top bombmaker for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization in Iraq, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. He was captured in January 2005....
, was captured by the coalition and claimed his associates made the bomb used in this attack. On December 16, 2005, Iraqi authorities issued an
arrest warrantAn arrest warrant is a warrant issued by and on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual.-Canada:Arrest warrants are issued by a judge or justice of the peace under section 83.29 of the Criminal Code of Canada...
for Mullah Halgurd al-Khabir, a commander of Ansar al-Sunna, in connection with the attack.
In an audio tape quoted here, Zarqawi motivated the bombing of the UN building.
The
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
newspaper
Corriere della SeraCorriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper , published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers, founded on Sunday, March 5 1876 by Eugenio Torelli Viollier...
identified the suicide bomber as
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
n national Fahdal Nassim. Other suspects included Baathists, militant Sunni and Shiite groups,
organized crimeOrganized crime or criminal organizations can be defined as a transnational grouping of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit...
, and tribal elements. Blame was initially thought to lie with
Ansar al-IslamAnsar al-Islam , Supporters or Partisans of Islam) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam, close to the official Saudi ideology of Wahhabism with strict application of Sharia...
, which was thought at the time to be Zarqawi's group. An otherwise unknown group called the "Armed Vanguards of the Second Mohammed Army" claimed they were responsible for the attack.
Responses
The suicide bombing of the United Nations in Baghdad drew overwhelming condemnation.
Kofi AnnanKofi Atta Annan, Honorary GCMG is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1 January 1997 to 1 January 2007. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.-Early years and family:Kofi Annan was born in the...
, United Nations Secretary-General, commented that the bombing would not stop the organization's efforts to rebuild Iraq, and said: "Nothing can excuse this act of unprovoked and murderous violence against men and women who went to Iraq for one purpose only: to help the Iraqi people recover their independence and sovereignty, and to rebuild their country as fast as possible, under leaders of their own choosing."
However, since this event the UN country team's expatriates and leaders relocated in Amman (Jordan) and continued to work remotely. Only some Iraqis have continued under drastic security measures all around the country (except in Kurdistan where they are more numerous and can move more freely). Few expatriates are, 5 years later, authorized to go inside Iraq (including Kurdistan) and only inside huge security compounds such as the so-called "
Green ZoneThe Green Zone is the common name for the International Zone of Iraq— a 10-square-kilometer area in central Baghdad, Iraq, that was the center of the Coalition Provisional Authority and remains the center of the international presence in the city...
" in Baghdad. Humanitarian support is now entirely conducted inside the country by NGOs, under UN remote supervision.
The World Humanitarian Day
On 11 December 2008, the
United Nations General AssemblyFor two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:*General Assembly members*General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
made history when it adopted the Swedish sponsored GA Resolution A/63/L.49 on the Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Assistance of the United Nations, that amongst other important humanitarian decisions, decided to designate 19 August as the
World Humanitarian DayOn 11 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly made history when it adopted the Swedish-sponsored GA Resolution A/63/L.49 on the Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Assistance of the United Nations, that amongst other important humanitarian decisions, decided to designate 19...
(WHD). The Resolution gives for the first time, a special recognition to all humanitarian and
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
and associated personnel who have worked in the promotion of the humanitarian cause and those who have lost their lives in the cause of duty and urges all Member States, entities of the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
within existing resources, as well as the other
International OrganizationsAn intergovernmental organization, sometimes rendered as an international governmental organization and both abbreviated as IGO, is an organization comprised primarily of sovereign states , or of other intergovernmental organization...
and
Non-Governmental OrganizationsNon-governmental organization is a term that has become widely accepted as referring to a legally constituted, non-governmental organization created by natural or legal persons with no participation or representation of any government...
to observe it annually in an appropriate way. It marks the day on which the then Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Iraq,
Sergio Vieira de MelloSérgio Vieira de Mello was a Brazilian United Nations diplomat who worked for the UN for more than 34 years, earning respect and praise around the world for his efforts in the humanitarian and political programs of the UN...
and his 21 colleagues tragically made the ultimate sacrifices in the cause of duty following the bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad.
See also
- Attacks on humanitarian workers
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent have traditionally enjoyed both international legal protection, and de facto immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally...
- World Humanitarian Day
On 11 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly made history when it adopted the Swedish-sponsored GA Resolution A/63/L.49 on the Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Assistance of the United Nations, that amongst other important humanitarian decisions, decided to designate 19...
External links
- United Nations portal for the anniversary
- Kofi Annan's statement on the one-year anniversary
- who.int Senior WHO official, Dr David Nabarro
Dr. David Nabarro , works as the Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza at United Nations Headquarters in New York. He has been seconded to this position from the World Health Organization....
, describes his experience inside the Canal Hotel
- on the bombing, Oct. 22, 2003 March 3, 2004 Report of the Security in Iraq Accountability Panel (SIAP)
- GlobalSecurity.org The Canal Hotel UN Headquarters Compound