My friend Fred Abrahams wrote to give me this sad news about his friend Marla. April Pedersen of Democracy in Action describes courageous and admirable Marla thus:
It is with deep sadness and regret that I am writing to inform you that Marla died on Saturday at the age of 28 in a suicide bomb attack. Faiz, CIVIC’s Iraq Country Director, was also killed. It is tragically ironic that two beautiful people who devoted their lives to helping innocent victims of war have now become them.
The attack occurred on the Baghdad Airport road as she traveled to visit an Iraqi child injured by a bomb, part of her daily work of identifying and supporting innocent victims of this war.
Only a few hours before her death, Marla sent me this photo of Harah. She was 3 months old when she was thrown from a vehicle just before it was destroyed by a U.S. rocket attack. Her entire family was killed. Hers just one example of the hundreds of lives Marla and Faiz touched with their heroic work.
More here. And the always-intelligent Veronica Khokhlova has more about Marla here. Oh, and in case you are interested, this is what Fred had to say about Marla:
Would be more jovial but I just heard the sad news that my friend Marla
Ruzicka was killed in Iraq. She was a rambunctious 27-year-old who won
my respect when she organized the Afghani families of civilian victims
to demonstrate in front of the US embassy in Kabul for compensation.
She was doing similar work in Iraq – fighting for civilian victims to
get compensation from the US military. She was tireless, charmingly
naive, committed and undeterred.