Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos
Malnutrition Nearly Double What It Was Before Invasion
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A809-2004Nov20.htmlAccording to an Oxfam report on Iraq released Jul. 30, "92 percent of children had learning impediments that are largely attributable to the current climate of fear. Schools are regularly closed as teachers and pupils are too fearful to attend. Over 800,000 children may now be out of school, according to a recent estimate by Save the Children UK -- up from 600,000 in 2004."
The Oxfam report also said that child malnutrition rates in Iraq have risen from 19 percent before the invasion in 2003, to 28 percent. "More than 11 percent of newborn babies were born underweight in 2006, compared with 4 percent in 2003."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39113NPR reports today that on a new study of 2,500 kids, randomly chosen from a middle-income area of north Baghdad, to see if researchers could determine the effects of the war on their mental health. The study revealed that approximately 70% of children are showing clear symptoms of stress disorders from the high levels of ongoing violence and deaths in many neighborhoods of Iraq. While not mentioned in this report, psychiatrists would predict that without treatment, many of these children will suffer from long term mental health problems (depression, anxiety, and - for those genetically and biologically at risk, schizophrenia). The added difficulty is that most of the trained psychologists and psychiatrists have left Iraq due to fears of their own personal safety.
http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/004966.htmlMore children starving post-Saddam: UN
Posted Thu Mar 31, 2005 6:40pm AEST
A United Nations (UN) food expert has attacked the American-led occupation of Iraq, saying that since Saddam Hussein was ousted the number of Iraqi children suffering from malnutrition has almost doubled.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2005/03/31/1335595.htmAccording to a recent report released by Save the Children, between the first Gulf War in 1990 and 2005, the mortality rate for children under age five rose 150 percent in Iraq. Some other saddening statistics - In 2005, the last year in which data is available according to the report, 122,000 Iraqi children died before age 5. This is a rate of 125 per 1,000 children. In contrast, the U.S. the rate is only 7 per 1,000. A quarter of the children suffering from suspected pneumonia are not seen by health care providers because the parents can not afford to pay. Nearly half of children under 5 with diarrhea are not given oral re-hydration treatment. More than a fifth of all Iraqi children suffer from severely or moderately stunted growth. Only about a third of children are fully immunized against preventable diseases. Over a quarter of births occur with no health care provider in attendance. The infant mortality rate has increased 37 percent in the last four years of the war.
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4116&Itemid=220More here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=children+suffering+iraq+more&btnG=Google+Search