Imagine a chocolate
bar: Vavuniya, Sri Lanka
Imagine a big chocolate
bar, filled with cereal crisps or peanuts. Image now a chocolate
bar, between 5 to 12 kilogram, bent to one side so that it looks
like a banana; filled with round metal bullets instead of the yummy
crispy cereals. Somebody pulls the trigger, it explodes and the
little metal balls are going off – here we go, that’s basically a
claymore.
(Un)lucky
Over the last three months, we have
already seen, what these devices can do, if they hit a person. We
have learned that it is only a question of being lucky or unlucky.
The gods have obviously not smiling on a person when he or she went
out of the door that day, so why should they bother about what’s
next? Very often, there is only a little superficial wound, but
inside a vital organ is hit, a vessel is destroyed or a bone is
crushed – or, as I said, there is nearly no damage. The bullet made
its way through the body without massive destruction.
Chance
Working as a nurse in the emergency
unit, you find three categories of casualties: the lucky ones, the
unlucky ones which, if they reach the hospital alive, die no matter
what you do and how hard you fight, and those who have a real
chance to stay alive – or say, at least you get a real chance to
try and keep them alive. On bad days, you can see five casualties
coming in and there have been days after days where you have seen
none at all. And suddenly, one morning, you get a call from the
hospital, that a claymore went off again and a high influx of
casualties is expected – and you have not even finished your
coffee.
Strange?
There is nothing more to tell. Isn’t
it already strange to work in a country, colleagues are clapping at
your shoulder and say lucky you? Isn’t it already strange to work
in a country, you find a whole bookshelf of traveling guides for?
Isn’t it strange to read in one of these traveling guides, how
exciting it is, to cross a defensive line? Isn’t it strange how
used you get to the outgoing shelling, no longer worth interrupting
a badminton game in the evening? It is! No question.
Better hurry up
Even more, as it is your main
task to be there for emergency interventions – that means in fact,
you are waiting for something to happen what you don’t want to
happen. You can only hope, that it is not happening the next day
again. But there is a ceasefire and there is no ceasefire… so
better hurry up with your coffee the next day.
On Saturday, the 7th of April a claymore hit a public bus. 4
persons died on the scene, 21 injured were rushed to Vavuniya
Hospital.
April 2007