varwoche
19th April 2005, 08:37 AM
She's the humanitarian worker who was a random victim of an explosion in Iraq several days ago.
Her death stunned a wide circle of diplomats, government officials, soldiers, journalists and ordinary people from Baghdad to Kabul.
"God bless her pure soul, she was trying to help us," said Haj Natheer Bashir, the brother-in-law of an Iraqi teenager Ruzicka was trying to evacuate to the Bay Area for surgery. "She was just a kind lady."
A former Marine who now works for the State Department in Baghdad said: "She was a remarkable woman and a kind person, and she affected everyone she came in contact with.
...
About 10 years ago, she showed up at the San Francisco offices of the left-leaning Global Exchange, said its founder, Medea Benjamin, the Green Party's candidate for the U.S. Senate from California in 2000.
Ruzicka accompanied Benjamin to Afghanistan in 2001 after the war to oust the Taliban, and came back a changed person, said her friend and volunteer attorney, David Frankel.
"She could no longer relate to the boring, mundane details of ordinary life," Frankel said.
She returned to Afghanistan on her own funds, "finding people who were hurt, finding what they needed — an artificial limb, a skin graft, a new roof over their house. She would find a way to fill the need directly," he said.
A few days after Baghdad fell in April 2003, Ruzicka showed up in Iraq. She began building a volunteer network to document civilian casualties.
LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-marla19apr18,1,6997741.story?coll=la-iraq-complete)
Her death stunned a wide circle of diplomats, government officials, soldiers, journalists and ordinary people from Baghdad to Kabul.
"God bless her pure soul, she was trying to help us," said Haj Natheer Bashir, the brother-in-law of an Iraqi teenager Ruzicka was trying to evacuate to the Bay Area for surgery. "She was just a kind lady."
A former Marine who now works for the State Department in Baghdad said: "She was a remarkable woman and a kind person, and she affected everyone she came in contact with.
...
About 10 years ago, she showed up at the San Francisco offices of the left-leaning Global Exchange, said its founder, Medea Benjamin, the Green Party's candidate for the U.S. Senate from California in 2000.
Ruzicka accompanied Benjamin to Afghanistan in 2001 after the war to oust the Taliban, and came back a changed person, said her friend and volunteer attorney, David Frankel.
"She could no longer relate to the boring, mundane details of ordinary life," Frankel said.
She returned to Afghanistan on her own funds, "finding people who were hurt, finding what they needed — an artificial limb, a skin graft, a new roof over their house. She would find a way to fill the need directly," he said.
A few days after Baghdad fell in April 2003, Ruzicka showed up in Iraq. She began building a volunteer network to document civilian casualties.
LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-marla19apr18,1,6997741.story?coll=la-iraq-complete)