Baghdad's Sadr City goes to the great sheep give away

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2004

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Veiled women, young men and children pushed and shoved one another as they battled to be the first in line to get a free sheep or frozen chicken at a give-away by the US army in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City.

"Stop shoving one another; Form one line," a US army translator shouted from a bull horn at the excited crowd as people occasionally tumbled into the razor wire barriers, sealing off the US soldiers' trucks from the eager mob.

A tiny boy fell into the razor wire and Captain Stephen Hall lifted him off the ground and held him till his mother pushed her way through the line and went to fetch a chicken.

A teenager sidled up to one US soldier and punched him in the chin, the sergeant pushed him back several feet, and then cupped his jaw and...