"When the Americans came and said they took Zubayr, they left the next day," he said. "The fedayeen came in then, and we had to flee."

Fleeing Civilians Caught in the Middle
They crossed the bridge wearing tattered shoes if any at all. Their arms were filled with bags packed for exodus and children too young to walk. The city behind them, Basra, presented an apocalyptic landscape, jet black smoke from burning oil fires spilling over the flat desert horizon.

They were afraid.

Afraid of Saddam Hussein's troops inside the city who they said were executing people freely; afraid of the forces outside the city whose intentions they did not yet know; and afraid of what would come as their supplies of food and water continued to dwindle.

"We have nothing," said Saeed, a young man from the nearby town of Zubayr. He was trying to salvage scrap from a car that was little more that a charred skeleton. "No water, no food, no electricity, nothing."

This morning, Iraqi soldiers positioned in a factory complex about 500 yards beyond this bridge let loose a barrage of machine-gun and mortar fire toward the civilians walking out of Basra, sending them diving for cover in ditches, ponds and the bombed-out remains of vehicles, witnesses said.

One British soldier was killed in fighting nearer to the city, and several others were wounded, according to the British Defense Ministry in London.

Eleven days into the American-led war here, the narrow, once fertile crescent of territory that gives Iraq its only outlet to the sea remains a land of insecurity and ambivalence, devoid of the euphoria that American and British soldiers hoped to encounter in southern Iraq.

Basra, a city of 1.5 million people encircled now by British troops, remains a place of uncertainty. What exactly is happening there is unclear, but the reports from those fleeing are troubling.

While older people carry dirty water from fetid puddles and wait for help to come, the predominant emotions here on the city's outskirts seem to be apprehension, confusion or outright mistrust. Barefoot children run through the dust of passing military vehicles with outstretched hands shouting the only English word they know: "Give!"

Basra lies close to Zubayr, a town captured by allied forces early in the war but still not fully secured. Saeed, the man from there, was still too scared to give his full name. He said fedayeen loyal to Mr. Hussein were killing those they saw talking to allied troops.

Saeed said he did not like the life he was handed in Iraq but was equally distrustful of the allied forces.

"When the Americans came and said they took Zubayr, they left the next day," he said. "The fedayeen came in then, and we had to flee."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/31/international/worldspecial/31REFU.html?pagewanted=all&position=top