By Kathy Kelly

“We’ve given up hope,” said 20 year old Mohammed Al Katib, a Palestinian student imprisoned in the Umm Qasr prison camp in southern Iraq. “We don’t think we’ll ever get out of here.”

On January 3, 2004, I traveled with Rev. Jerry Zawada, OFM, and several of our Iraqi friends to Umm Qasr, located on the Iraq-Kuwait border. There, in a remote and desolate area where US Coalition authorities have constructed a network of tent prisons, we visited four Palestinian students who’ve been held for many months by US coaliton authorities. In the “Bucca Camp,” (named after a firefighter who died in the World Trade Center) prisoners and guards alike battle against monotony, anxiety, and isolation. The prisoners we met listed one more emotional pitfall: despair.