'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

RIP Sarwa (and so many others)

The L.A. Times's Tina Susman has a wrenchingly sad post on their blog today, writing about the May 4 killing in Mosul of Iraqi journalist Sarwa Abdul-Wahhab.

Susman writes:

[Sarwa Abdul] Wahab, who was 35, was in a taxi with her mother on the morning of May 4 when gunmen forced the car to stop. It appeared to be a kidnapping attempt. Wahab resisted and was shot to death in front of her mother, whom she was taking to a hospital to visit an ailing relative.

In the past year alone, at least three female journalists have been killed in Mosul. They include Zeena Shakir Mahmoud, 35, who was killed on her way home from work last June.

A few days earlier, 44-year-old Sahar al-Haidari had been slain in the city.

The fact that so many of the people working these dangerous and high-skill jobs are female underlines the degree to which Iraqi society, even under Saddam, and even through the horrendous, 13-year-long tribulations of the US-spearheaded 'sanctions' era, was one in which women got good educations and good professional skills. The US occupation has, tragically, been a major factor in pushing Iraq "back to the Stone Age" in so many respects, not least in terms of the opportunities available to rising generations of girls and younger women.

Susman includes some tragic details about Sarwa Abdul Wahhab's life:

The object of [Abdul] Wahab's affection was a Kurdish man. She was not a Kurd, and that was the reason he gave her for not being able to marry. "She died without having the man of her dreams," her friend wrote, adding that friends counseled Wahab to find someone else to no avail.

Wahab had been supporting her family, including her mother and several siblings, since her father's death recently. It wasn't an easy life, and it wasn't the one she necessarily dreamed of. But, her friend says, she kept on smiling and spent what little extra money she had on colorful scarves and accessories to brighten up her life, and the lives of those around her.