Childhood Is Dying

[babylonsister]

Childhood Is Dying
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2008-03-10 21:32.
By Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali, Inter Press Service


BAQUBA, Mar 10 (IPS) - Iraq's children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population.

The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.

But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.

A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a population of about 25 million.

According to a UN Children's Fund report released this month, "at least two million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Programme assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other threats including interrupted education, lack of immunisation services and diarrhoea diseases."

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/31690

[madrchsod]

1. silence is not golden

http://astarfrommosul.blogspot.com/2008/02/dead-zone.html
A Star from Mosul

http://livesstrong.blogspot.com/2008/02/all-together.html
Days of My Life: All together...

[eridani]

2. This is nothing but mass murder, period. n/t

[trthnd4jstc]

3. Another Reason to Impeach Bush and Cheney

What their invasion has done to the Iraqis is a war crime. I am so disappointed that the top of the Democratic Party thinks it is more important to not offend, and play it safe, than it is to support justice. The Iraqis have suffered tremendously. As I have said before, every member of BushCo who helped fulminate this war should be tried as war criminals and have their millions, and billions taken away and given to the Iraqis. Sweet Lord Above, Help Us From Your Followers, They Are Killing Us!