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Iraq Reports by Kelly
Hayes-Raitt
Sanctions
and Bombings
Take
Toll On Iraq's Children
(08/26/03, Baghdad, Fallouja,
Basra)
Half of Iraqis are children
under 16 years old. These orphans faced an uncertain future in
February, just 5 weeks before the U.S. invasion and bombings. (Photo by Kelly Hayes-Raitt,
2/03)
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"I can't wait to get back to LA and clean out
my lungs," I joked sarcastically while in Baghdad in July.
Three
wars, twelve years of sanctions and two decades of rule by a cruel,
uncaring tyrant have left Iraqis - especially children - with high
rates of respiratory diseases, typhoid, chronic dysentery and
leukemia.
Even before this year's war, Iraqi
children suffered from the unhealthful environmental effects of
previous wars and sanctions. In 1991, during the first Gulf War,
US-led forces bombed sewage treatment plants; 50% remained
unrepaired a dozen years later because sanctions held up the
importation of spare parts and chlorine. (Chlorine, suspected of
being used to build chemical weapons, was particularly difficult to
import.)
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Before this year's devastating "shock and
awe" bombing in March and April, Iraqis daily dumped 500,000 metric
tons of raw sewage into the Tigris, Euphrates and other rivers. These rivers are
sources of drinking water. We bombed water treatment plants in 1991, which
remained unrepaired by the time we bombed again this spring - once again,
because sanctions held up the importation of spare parts and chlorine.
The result is that for years children drank
non-potable water. Childhood diarrhea quadrupled over the last decade; the
average Iraqi child had diarrhea 14 days each month - before this last war. The
United Nations has estimated that childhood diarrhea has tripled again
over the last five months.
The immediate future doesn't bode well for the
few functioning water treatment plants that still exist. For example, I visited
a small water treatment plant in Fallouja that serves 5,000 people with clean,
chlorinated water. Faiza Ahmed, the dynamic female chief engineer who overseas
drinking water for 200,000 residents of Fallouja and its suburbs, said, "We
have chlorine for two months more. After that, who knows?"
While visiting a Croce Rossa Italiana
(Italian Red Cross) emergency M*A*S*H-style tent hospital erected on a vacant
parking lot next to the old prison in Baghdad, I met Ebade, a fragile infant who
had had diarrhea for 49 consecutive days. "She came in more dead than
alive," said Anna Prousse, a compassionate, hard-working volunteer from
Milan, Italy. "She screams regularly now, so she will be OK."
The Italian volunteers distribute 8,000
one-liter plastic bags of filtered water each day to schools, orphanages, and
hospitals. Yet, pediatricians at the dramatic tent hospital daily treat between
150 and 180 Iraqis - primarily children - who suffer from malnutrition,
hepatitis, meningitis and typhoid, Anna explains over the sound of nearby
gunshots.
"We see everything," says Anna,
looking at the long line of Iraqis waiting in the 120 degree afternoon heat.
"Thousands of children with desperate diseases, some we haven't seen
before. Some are congenital - many families marry among themselves. Some of the
congenital diseases are due to depleted uranium."
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In 1991, we dropped 320 tons of depleted
uranium on Iraqis. The United Nations estimates we used between 1,100 and 2,200
tons - between three and seven times as much - during this recent war. While
there are no specific scientific studies linking depleted uranium exposure and
incidents of cancer or birth defects, Iraqi doctors widely cite high incidents
of childhood leukemias, birth defects and stillbirths in people who live near
areas that were exposed to this nuclear waste. (American soldiers may also have
been exposed to depleted uranium during both wars.)
In
July, I toured a pediatric unit of the Basra Hospital for Obstetrics and
Pediatrics. "The situation was not good before the war,"
explains Dr. Mohammed Masser, head pediatrician, as he clicked his worry
beads. "Previously, there were no drugs, no sanitation, no
electricity. I had one patient die every month because of cancer, but I
have five people die every day from diarrhea, due to malnutrition."
The impact of this epidemic of
childhood diseases is staggering: 50% of Iraq's population are children
under the age of 16 - that's 13 million children. Before this last war,
every other family experienced the death of a child under the age of
five. Iraqi families will be living with the effects of this most recent
war for decades to come.
"Most patients have come from
areas with heavy bombing," said Dr. Mohammed Kamil, head of
pediatric residents at the Basra Hospital for Obstetrics and Pediatrics,
when describing his young cancer patients. "The children with
cancer - only one percent will live. We can't get the chemotherapy. We
cannot tell people their children will die; we just do our
best." |
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Mustafa, a 9-day-old
infant dying of leukemia, is comforted by his mother, Senna Abbadaas, at
the Basra Hospital for Obstetrics and Pediatrics in Iraq. Only 1 percent
of children with cancer will survive, doctors say. (Photo by Kelly
Hayes-Raitt) |
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