Learn More About the UN Bombing

Going Forward from the Terrorist Attack on the UN
Gil Loescher

On 29 January, nearly six months after the suicide bombing of the UN in Baghdad, the European Parliament in Brussels awarded the Sakharov Prize 2003 for Freedom of Thought to the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and all staff of the United Nations, in memory of those who died in that terrorist attack in Baghdad on August 19th . The Sakharov Prize is one of the most prestigious human rights awards and honours people who show remarkable dedication to their principles and tenacity in the face of great odds. Some of the former Sakharov laureates include Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Wei Jingsheng, and las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, among others. In attendance at this year’s moving award ceremony were not only a number of former laureates but also families of some of the victims, a few of the UN staff members injured at the time, and my family and I.

Outside the Assembly Hall there was a special exhibition honouring all the laureates both past and present. A number of us gathered quietly in front of the photos of the 22 who lost their lives that day in August. For the first time since the attack I was able to see the faces of those who had been with me in the office of the UN Special Envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The photos were of smiling and energetic faces reflecting hope and optimism. Among them was Arthur Helton of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He was a good friend and colleague who had devoted his life to promoting the causes of human rights and refugees. Each individual in that display, including the Iraqi staff members, was a life tragically cut short by the forces of hatred and intolerance.

Arthur and I had arrived in Baghdad early on the 19th of August to assess the human cost of the war and occupation and were planning to report our findings and recommendations to the UN, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and NGOs. As experts on refugees and humanitarian issues, Arthur and I had travelled to far flung parts of the world for decades to do field work and to meet with others who cared passionately about refugees and other vulnerable peoples. Over the past twenty years I had spent some long days and nights in refugee camps in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Central America, sometimes in precarious and dangerous situations. I had always returned home safely and relatively unscathed. This time, however, things would be different.

Upon our arrival we went directly to see Ambassador Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, at his office in Saddam Hussein’s former palace in Baghdad. Later that afternoon we were taken to the UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel in central Baghdad. We went straightaway to the third floor office of Sergio Vieira de Mello for a 4.30 meeting with him and some of his senior staff.

At exactly the same time, a cement truck driven by a suicide bomber and loaded with one thousand kilograms of explosives was circling the compound, looking for a way in. As Arthur and I exchanged greetings with Sergio and his staff, the suicide attacker was able to turn into the space directly under Sergio’s office and detonate his bomb.

The deafening explosion collapsed the ceiling of the third floor upon us, catapulting all of us some 15 meters down to the ground floor. Several of the people in the room were crushed to death under the weight of the concrete beams of the collapsed roof, ceilings and floors of the building. Others were killed or severely injured when the bomb shattered the windows of the building sending fragments flying everywhere. The bomb killed Arthur Helton and twenty others and left 150 people wounded. Everyone who had been in the meeting with Sergio and people who had been in the rooms below that office were buried in the rubble. I lay trapped, hanging by my ruined legs that were caught between the floor and the collapsed ceiling of Sergio’s office. Sergio de Mello survived for over two hours while UN staff and others attempted to rescue him but he died before they could get him out. I was the only survivor in the most devastated part of the building, I lost both my legs above the knees, severely damaged my right hand and suffered numerous shrapnel wounds.

Somehow I managed to regain consciousness. One thought dominated my mind. I was absolutely determined not to die in the rubble but to survive and return home to my family. I did not realize that I was but a few meters from Sergio. I was able to get the attention of an emergency medical officer who had arrived on the scene and was peering down a shaft from what remained of the third floor.

I drifted in and out of consciousness during much of the rescue effort but apart from initially regaining consciousness after the blast, signaling for help, and then telling the rescuer my name, I don’t remember much. Since the incident, I have been in contact with some of the UN security staff and US army medics who worked to rescue me and they have told me some details of the rescue effort.

One of the UN Security staff members was the first person to speak to me. He reached his arm through a half meter gap between two sections of collapsed concrete, held my hand and talked to me. We talked about where I was located in the rubble, how I was feeling and what injuries I had sustained. He reassured me that people were trying to rescue me and that before too long I would be lifted to safety. After a few minutes he left to find a soldier to look after me and recommenced his search to locate Sergio and other possible survivors.

As soon as it was established that Sergio and I were the only two survivors from the group who had been meeting on the third floor, two separate rescue teams were formed to try to save both of us. The rescuers faced many obstacles. The building was collapsing around all of us and there was a drainage leak that was causing a mudslide inhibiting the desperate efforts to rescue Sergio. The rescuers dug furiously to clear the mud and rubble from the gap near him.

The US medics who were trying to recover me climbed down the shaft from what was left of the top floor, released my crushed legs, applied tourniquets, and injected me with morphine. When one of the medics tried to pull me onto the stretcher, he grabbed for my badly shattered right hand. Later he told me he balked at taking it for fear of damaging it further. But almost immediately, I put my left arm tightly around his shoulder enabling him to pull me onto the stretcher. So after about three hours I was pulled out of the rubble and rushed to a US Air Force field hospital at the Baghdad international airport.

My hopelessly injured legs were amputated above the knees. Mercifully my right hand, which appeared to be almost impossibly damaged, was not amputated on the small chance that a surgeon further down the line could deal with it. The shrapnel wounds to my face were stitched and particular attention was paid to repairing my upper lip, part of which was missing.

Within hours of the blast I was air evacuated to a US military hospital in Germany where my condition was stabilized and where I was reunited with my frantic family. I was in critical condition and doctors only gave me a twenty-five percent chance of survival. But my family remained determined to see me through this crisis. They felt sustained by the hundreds of messages of support and prayers sent by family and friends over the weeks that followed.

After two and a half weeks, I was again air evacuated, this time to the emergency care unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. There were several more operations, including some incredible reconstructive surgery to my right hand.

With the help of dedicated doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other NHS specialist staff the speed and extent of my recovery has been remarkable. No one thought I would return home until after Christmas. But beating all predictions and with incredible support from my family, I left hospital and arrived home on 1st November. The next Monday I started my prosthetics treatment at the Nuffield Orthopedic Centre and took my first new steps on very short legs that day.

It is difficult to fully explain why this awful event happened and I cannot imagine what went on in the minds of those who perpetrated the attack. The continuing conflict in Iraq involves a mindset on the parts of all the antagonists of ‘either you’re with us or against us’. This attitude leaves little room for independent, neutral action on the part of the UN and humanitarian agencies. The UN is identified by local opposition to the occupation as taking sides and collaborating with the US. Nor does it help the UN’s position that it had to implement sanctions against Iraq for a decade. This excuses neither this reprehensible attack on the UN last August nor the later terrorist attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross. These actions aggressively flout widely held international norms that protect all civilians and non-combatants in areas of conflict.

Despite the injuries I sustained, I do not dwell on the past but remain focused on the future. This attitude combined with my stubbornness and optimism will help my recovery. I also draw upon the courage and example of others. During my career, I have had the great privilege of visiting refugees and displaced people all over the world. I have learned a lot from their resilience and optimism in the face of seemingly insuperable difficulties. In my own recovery I try to draw upon my special experience of knowing these people and appreciating their incredible inner strengths.

The bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad was a horrendous experience for the victims of the blast and their families. It has also had a huge impact on the future of humanitarian action generally. The Baghdad attack was a devastating and cathartic event. It was the UN’s 11 September, changing forever the way the UN and its staff will view the world. In its wake, many in the international community feel that humanitarian action can no longer operate as it did before. The UN and NGOs face several challenges for their future work which they ignore at their peril.

The dangerous new environment raises several old but now extremely pressing questions:

• How can the UN and NGO humanitarian agencies avoid being too closely identified with the military forces of intervening and occupying forces?


• How can the UN better balance the necessity of engaging in life saving operations in war zones with the risk such actions pose to its staff?


• Do the UN and the international community need to greatly bolster multilateral humanitarian and human rights norms even if this involves a restraint on the national interests of states?

In accepting the Sakharov Prize, Kofi Annan described those who died in the 19th of August attack as “free spirits and free thinkers” and praised their courage in making the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of peace. Those of us who survived the Baghdad attack have reason to make sure that the issues it raises are addressed by governments, the UN and non-governmental agencies.

This event has given me greater strength and a renewed sense of commitment to continue studying and reporting on the issues that mattered so much to Arthur Helton, Sergio Vieira de Mello and to all those others who died that day while working to ensure the survival of humanitarian norms.

Every day brings me new challenges with things I used to take for granted.
I am having to learn to walk again, write again, move around my home independently. Like me, the UN must learn from the disaster of 19th August. It must find innovative ways of doing its vital work if it is to survive and carry on.

Gil Loescher is Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and columnist for opendemocracy.net

Published in The Independent (London) February 16, 2004, © Gil Loescher