By Alireza Bahrami
Correspondent for AsiaN
TEHRAN: A few weeks ago, people were killed in the streets, protesting against a government they believed had taken away their freedom. These days, people are dying at home, by governments they claim want to free them. Life in the Middle East has such characteristics.
“Oil” gave modern life to people all over the world; but for a century, it has been killing people in third world countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
In the past few decades, the Middle East has experienced intermittent wars; wars that usually involve the United States!
The war that began on Saturday with the attack by Israel and the United States on the residence of the Iranian leader has now involved various countries in the Middle East.
Like previous experiences, this war is not limited to the murder of officials, soldiers and generals.
The missile attack on Tehran, starting on Sunday night, spread from army barracks to police stations.
Around midnight local time, our house in Tehran shook violently and we heard a loud bang. An hour later, the news broke that the local police station in our neighborhood, about a kilometer away from our house, had been targeted by an attack on Food Stores Street.
Oh! My beautiful neighborhood, every day a part of it explodes!
I visited the scene of the attack at 12:00 on Monday. After half a day, the loaders were still busy clearing away the rubble. The windows of buildings within a radius of 500 meters were broken. Cars parked on the street within a radius of 200-300 meters were crushed by the force of the explosion.
So, it is natural that more than 20 people would be killed in such an attack. The police station was an ordinary building and the force of the explosion also destroyed the neighboring buildings; buildings with restaurants on the ground floor and ordinary citizens living on the upper floors.
Photos released minutes after the attack show the grim reality: Ordinary people are becoming victims of politicians’ ambitions. They become a number, a list of war casualties!
In a similar incident on the first day of the war, more than 100 girls were killed in a primary school in southern Iran. In Tehran, hospitals were so badly damaged by the blast wave that they were completely evacuated.
War knows no rules, no values; above all, the value of human life!
Right now, the sound of repeated explosions can be heard from afar and the smell of gunpowder has taken over everywhere. This was not our right, our share of life…
