Critical Times

SYDNEY’S Martin Place was turned into a makeshift morgue today with hundreds of body bags symbolising civilian victims of world conflict.

Volunteers of all ages, races, religions and political persuasion worked overtime to make the 296 bags filling the public area in Sydney’s CBD, said organiser Omeima Sukkarieh.

“It’s all about honouring victims of war, whether they’re soldiers or civilians,” Ms Sukkarieh said. “The life of every human being is important.

“There are no winners in war.”

The display was particularly relevant given the war between Israel and Lebanon and the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said.

According to the Iraq Body Count, Palestine Red Crescent Society and the United Nations, more than 2600 people were killed in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Palestine just between July 12 and August 14 this year.

Almost 42,000 people have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, many of them children.