Marking the 4th anniversary of the invasion

Together with friends from Voices in the Wilderness, Catholic Worker and Fellowship for Reconciliation I helped plant 186 crosses in Parliament Square to remember those killed in Iraq. Each cross had the name of a known victim and together they represented the 186,000 estimated to have been directly killed by Coalition forces (estimated from a survey published in the Lancet in October 2006 which estimated a total death toll of 655,000). My close friend Salih, and Iraqi doctor from Basra, mournfully participated and updated me on the latest horror stories from his friends and family in Iraq - the hospital were he trained in Basra is nearly empty as most doctors have been killed or have fled. The crosses in the picture looked battered because there was strong wind and hail while we were errecting them - the ragged look is perhaps more suited to Iraq's devestation than tidy military-style rows of gravestones. A photo of the crosses appeared in the Metro this morning, and the event is written up by Ekklesia and Indymedia.