I will never forget that day 10 years ago. They tried to turn the young man towards Mecca. The small but deadly bullet wound on his side could hardly be seen.
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MEET THE BLOGGERS
Name: Samira Aziz
Lives: Grozny
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An old man next to him kept saying: "Just think about God, think about God".
The young man died quietly. There were many of them that day - those who will remain young forever.
Grozny was again under mortal fire and it didn't matter anymore who was fighting against whom.
It was another senseless war with women and children as victims. They couldn't understand why or what they were dying for.
The new military campaign had taken everyone by surprise. People were not ready for it, the city was living its normal life.
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PEACE BLOGGERS
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It was a summer night, 5 August. I was preparing for the next day's programme writing a script about a doctor who died during the first war in Chechnya.
It was another attempt to show everyone the scale of our losses. The sight of the city in ruins was breaking my heart.
Damp shelter
We had turned from being spoiled children into mature adults, with some horrifying memories to share. Falling asleep, I thought how lucky we were that it was all over.
In the morning I was woken up not by my alarm clock but by sounds of fighting somewhere in the city.
When they started to bombard our area, our five-storey building was shaking like a house of cards. My mother began to prepare a shelter in our basement.
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Chechens ... used to be famous for their generosity and hospitality
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I was looking at this square black hole in the floor which smelled of damp. I thought of my big airy office that was burning right then.
My "today" was under my feet: the darkness of the basement. My "tomorrow" was absolutely unclear to me.
The next day, 6 August, I saw a person die for the first time.
He had a smile on his face. I will remember the scene for the rest of my life.
For many years now I have been trying to understand what has happened to us.
How come Chechens now have this image of brutality, when they used to be famous for their generosity and hospitality?
How did they fall into this devilish game where power and money have more value than a human life?
Era of brutality
It all began many years ago. Dark times came into Chechnya and everything changed.
It was a new era of brutality where people renounced everything they believed in.
The more they cried out to God the more scared they were.
Those days in August were rather cold, unlikely for summer.
When people can't make peace with each other, nature contemptuously turns away from us.
Our damp basement was the only suitable place to stay.
The body of the dead young man wrapped in a sheet was lying very nearby, behind the wall.
From another basement we heard a baby cry; there was a woman with a two month old child.
She had lost her breast milk and didn't know how to feed him.
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Only human wisdom and the desire to live can save us, otherwise our planet would already be a dead desert.
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Death on one side and the desire to live on the other - this is the face of war.
This is more or less how Grozny looked like during one of the most beautiful months of the year, August 1996.
21 September is announced as International Peace Day. If only it was possible to announce 100 years of peace, to ban the war forever.
In his statement Kofi Annan said "this day is given to those who fight so that they could realize what they are doing".
I wish I could find words that would help to stop all these soul-killing wars.
I wish I could remove hatred from souls; this hatred brings them to madness. So many lives could be saved then.
Nevertheless, people live by love and hope. Only human wisdom and the desire to live can save us. Otherwise our planet would already be a dead desert.
There are many of those who share this belief. And I live with hope that this Peace Day may become eternal.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~54~RS~)
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~54~RS~)
One-Minute World News
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