Diary entries from Quebec members of the Iraq Peace Team and "war updates" from the Iraq Peace Team, now on the ground in Baghdad.

NEW REPORTS AL NASER MARKET (March 28) The largest carnage of Iraqi civilians yet since the beginning of U.S. bombings occurred on March 28 at about 6 PM when a bomb fell on a heavily crowded open air market in the predominantly Shiite district of Al Sholeh in North Baghdad, a very poor neighborhood. An IPT visited the Al Naser Market the following day, observed the bombsite, and talked with neighbors and witnesses. The main hit was on an asphalted lane between a row of metal booths and a row of tents. The crater in the asphalt appeared to be about 1 meter deep and about 3 meters in diameter. The death toll had risen to 57, two of the injured having died after arriving at the Al Nur hospital, according to Dr. Ibrahim Sayid Ahmed. Of the 48 injured remaining hospsitalized, 22 had been transferred to specialized units, he said. Most of the injured that IPT talked to had received shrapnel wounds in their arms, legs, and stomachs. Others injured were transported to Al Khadamia hospital. A piece of metal from the weapon was obtained from one of the children gathered there who offered it from his pocket. It appeared to be from the casing. Three spots of blood from dead people (according to standers-by) still lay on the ground.

The injured included: Zaina Kadhea*, 14, boy, with a leg injury, one arm broken. and a head injury; Iklaas Fesg*, 26, woman, and; Raison Zait Mohammed*, 55, leg and arm broken.

ANOTHER INCIDENT IN THE AL SHOLEH DISTRICT (March 28) While visiting the hospital, the IPT team investigating the Al Naser Market incident learned from Dr. Ahmed that earlier on Friday, March 28, a bomb had fallen on a house in the same district of Al Sholeh. There were five children in the house, the doctor said, and two had died, a boy of two and a girl of three. The IPT team saw two of the injured, Sajad Mohammed*, 3, whose little brother died, and Saja Jaafar*, about 2, whose sister had been killed.

RAGIBAA DISTRICT - KHATOON AL-ATHENIA CITY On March 28, the IPT team visited a recently bombed house in the Ragibaa District of Khatoon in Al-Athenia City on Road 7, #320. The team interviewed Mustaffa*, a next-door neighbor, and Mustaffa Kasu*, a neighbor across the street and took photographs of the scene.

REVISED REPORTS ABDULLAH HAAMID HASSAWI FAMILY (March 25) On March 27, an IPT team visited the home of the Abdullah Haamad Hassawi family, House #74, Street #3, District 317, located in Al Tujjaar, a residential neighborhood in Al Shaab in North Baghdad. Next door to their home, the team saw damage to windows of the Balquis Secondary School for Girls. In the Hassawi family home, the team saw rubble from walls on the second floor roof patio in the courtyard below, as well as hundreds of marks in the outer walls made from small, uniform, cubed, metal pellets with sharp edges three to five millimeters thick. In an upstairs room, there was a large blood stained mattress on the floor.

Family members reported that Muneed Abid Haamid, 25, and his 23-year-old wife, Sahhar, and their 6-year-old son, Qaiser Muhweb, had been lying on their mattress upstairs when metal fragments from the bomb came in through the window. Muneed said that he instinctively, immediately covered his wife and child with his body and soon felt blood pouring out of his stomach. These fragments broke the glass and hit and injured them all. Muneed suffered major wounds in his stomach, thighs, legs, and feet. His wife and son had their legs broken. They were taken to the Al Numann Hospital in the Aldemia area.

The large number of pellet marks on the walls, from top to bottom, but not on the floor of the patio or downstairs in the courtyard, and the low level of damage done to the building, suggested to the team that a fragmentation bomb may have exploded about eight feet above the roof patio and sprayed pellets into the walls. From that point, the bomb could have blasted fragments through the window, hitting the three injured, as well as blown out the windows of the school next door. The IPT team removed three pellets from one wall. Dr. Jacques Beres, a French plastic surgeon with 35 years experience working in war zones later confirmed that the pellets were indeed from a fragmentation bomb.