"Most people seemed calm at first but after the first explosion in the camp everyone panicked and screamed. With the second explosion, a piece of shrapnel slashed my husband’s throat open and the last sound I heard him make was the rush of air emptying from his lungs as he collapsed. I had my seven-month-old baby in my arms but God helped him survive. I could not see my daughter (eight-year-old Dunia) because of the smoke. But as the smoke cleared, I was only able to recognise her from a piece of her pyjamas. She had been blown to pieces and there was nothing else left."

Ibrahim Taki, Mounira’s husband, is lying at the entrance of what remains of the officers mess. His corpse is partially hidden by a woollen blanket thrown over him by one of the
Fijian soldiers. His head is attached to his body only by a flap of flesh at the back of his neck and his head is stretched back at an absurd angle, fully displaying the ghastly wound. The officers’ mess is a charnel house. There are dozens of corpses lying in the terrible intimacy of death, many without arms, legs and heads. Pieces of human meat have been  blasted onto the two-foot high wall and the supporting wooden columns, all that remains of the building after the corrugated iron walls and roof were blown away by the direct hit.

Ahmed Taki
Ahmad Taki (1974), Mounira’s son, had been invited to drink tea just prior to the shelling in a bunker sited between the officers’ mess, where his family were, and the conference room.

"I was watching people being injured and killed but I was unable to help them because of the shells and the shrapnel flying everywhere. I saw a badly injured Fijian soldier who was resting outside the shelter. It was only after the shelling had stopped and I saw my mother screaming that I knew my father was dead."

‘No one thought Lina would ever live. People are amazed’

Lina Taki, six years old at the time of the Qana massacre, was pulled from beneath a pile of corpses in the Fijian officers’ mess and pronounced dead.
Shrapnel from the blast that had killed her father, Ibrahim, and her eight-year-old sister, Dunia, had ripped into her head and arm.
Part of her brain was exposed and the surviving members of her family believed she too had been killed.

“They were dragging her free when someone saw her foot move. A doctor felt her pulse and she was still alive,” said Sana Taki, Lina’s aunt.

Lina was taken to hospital in Tyre, then Sidon. But the extent of her injuries was so severe that she was sent to Britain for four months for specialised treatment. Lina returned to her home in Jbal al-Btom, 5km from Qana, unable to speak and crippled in her right hand. So began a long period of recuperation at the hands of Lina’s family.

“It was like she had been born again and had to go through the learning process once more,” Sana said.

One year ago on the first anniversary of the massacre. Even then she had not learnt to speak and was a sombre, shy child. Today she has almost completely recovered.

“At first she couldn’t remember the names of people and objects. We had to teach her step by step. Anything she couldn’t remember she would point at and we would tell her the right name. No one thought she would ever live. People who saw Lina in Qana are amazed to see how she is now,” Sana said.

Lina has grown her hair longer in the last year and put on a little weight.
She still does not have the full use of her hand but her refusal to speak is only a symptom of child-like reticence with strangers in her home.

“She’s quite a little rascal,” said Lina’s grandmother Raoufi Tohme. “She’s always running around making mischief.”

But the emotional legacy of the massacre will remain with Lina for many more years.

“Her body is the right size for her age but she has the mind of someone younger. She has a lot of catching up to do. Even now she keeps asking for her sister Dunia and every time she hears (Israeli) planes overhead or the sound of explosions she runs screaming inside,” said Sana.

Lina has no choice but to receive her education at home as the local schools have refused to take her.

“She still has pieces of shrapnel in her head. The doctors didn’t dare to take them out. The schools are worried that she might have a seizure and that they’d be unable to cope,” said Sana.

“We expect them to hit the area harder than even during the April war before they leave,” said Raaifti