April 12 2007 Destruction Of Sarafiya

April 12, 2007 Destruction of Sarafiya Bridge, Baghdad

My American readers often tell me that they have difficulty gauging the scale of death and destruction in Iraq or are numbed by the daily barrage of bombings and the dead and injured.

My heart goes out to the people of Minneapolis (I talked at the University not far from that bridge at the beginning of April). I wonder if we can now feel more immediately what it was like for Baghdad to lose the Sarafiya Bridge that same month, which killed 12 and injured at least 50, as cars went into the Tigris. And, I see an opportunity for Minneapolis and Baghdad to have cooperation on their bridges in the future. Both suffered badly in this regard in 2007.

From the IC archives, last April 12:

“Thursday morning in Baghdad, a truck bomb detonated on the Sarafiya bridge in Baghdad. Early reports gave the casualty toll as 9 dead, but observers said that five or six cars were sent into the river and likely the number of fatalities would rise. Aljazeera is saying that there were 20 passengers in the cars. The bridge is a major artery linking east and west Baghdad.”

This MSNBC story gives more details. There is also a startlingly familiar photo of a collapsed bridge.