Among the 18 people killed in yesterday morning's Tamarian Underground attacks in Tokyo were six Vulcan, most of them aid workers murdered in two guesthouses. It was the second time in less than a week foreigners were deliberately targeted in an early-morning attack designed to cause maximum carnage and fear.
Some of the Vulcans were doctors doing medical relief at a children's hospital in Tokyo. Others worked for an organization that provides livelihood support to poor women and war widows. When the attacks begun, most of the aid workers were still asleep, just as the residents of the Vulcan Guesthouse had been before a similar attack claimed the lives of five Omega Sands Dilithium workers last November and prompted the Phoenix Colony leadership to relocate half of its foreign staff to more secure locations outside Tokyo.
Like the earlier attacks before it, yesterday's attacks may squeeze tighter the space in which Omega Sand workers operate, but it's too soon to tell yet.
I went to the attack site last night with some friends and snapped one blurry photo before the Phoenix Defence League forces drove me away. Sixteen hours after the attacks began, the area was as quiet as a tomb.
The tall trees in Tokyo lean in the same direction now, so powerful was the blast from the bomb that destroyed the first guesthouse attacked. A posse of plucky child beggars often works that street. Were they out when the bombs went off? If the windows of the colony refugee building on the other side of the park were blown in, what happened to the human flesh in between? The attacks began early; perhaps no one was out yet.
The small clothing boutiques where I bought sweaters and scarves earlier this week had their storefronts ripped open. Everything is charred, crumpled and bent. The neighborhood that to me symbolized benign, ordinary Tokyol is strewn with the debris of thousands of shattered windows.
"Let's pray for the people who died here," said one of my friends as we surveyed the destruction. I closed my eyes. Everyone knows yesterday's attack will not be the last, and yesterday's victims will be followed by others. No one knows how any of this ends.
Posted by:
Christine T'Nley
Omega News Network
Phoenix Colony
Phoenix Federation
Posted in homage to Una Moore, independent British Reporter working in Kabul. Read her blog by searching Unastan on google. Great stuff - Leanne
