THE CHILDREN OF IRAQ

[Jcrowley]

Silencing the Children of Iraq


“whole lot of signing never gonna be heard, disappearing every day without so much as a word” - Patty Griffin, sung by the Dixie Chicks in “Top of the World”.


In this post, I am at least going to acknowledge that the voices and songs of the Iraqi children are disappearing in the tsunami of violence that our invasion and occupation has unleashed upon them – the truly innocent among us.

This is a link http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,2038665,00.html to a short video of some of the appalling conditions some children in Baghdad are facing now. It starts by showing a young boy with beautiful hazel eyes singing a song that has this line in it: “I slipped from your hands as I said farewell”. He explains that he was walking with his parents when he saw them explode. He is one of many children in this orphanage, and all of them know about death and loss, probably better than most readers of this post.

Some of them have also suffered horrible wounds from violent attacks. There is only one man running the orphanage now – the other man running the orphanage was killed by a death squad. Also, the orphanage is running out of funds and may soon close.


Another scene in this video is a young mother bringing her son to the doctor. She claims the boy has not acted normally since the car bomb. Both she and the doctor seem to think it is due to PTSD, although the child has obvious scars on his head. The video then discusses the threat of kidnapping that the children face. The final scene is a young girl crying as she listens to a singer sing of a better tomorrow. She is an orphan too.



The problems start before the child arrives in the world. This article tells of the problems of getting the expectant mother to the hospital under conditions of occupation, and it is called “Birth Amid the Bloodshed”. Driving at night is not allowed under curfew, and driving anyway could get you killed. And it is possible to get killed by several different actors in Iraq – criminals, militias, Iraqi army, Iraqi police or US military. No matter which group you might encounter after curfew, you could easily end up dead before you are even born. It sounds like the parents are most afraid of US troops. And the expectant parents cannot just drive to the closest hospital – it may be run by another sect. And that can get you killed also.

http://newsaboutiraq.blogspot.com/2007/03/silencing-children-of-iraq-whole-lot-of.html

[pinto]

1. Thanks for the post. The children. Often overlooked victims of the endemic violence in Iraq.

[az chela]

2. This is so heartbreaking

I wish it would be shown in every house and on the white house lawn.
Bush and company are murdering criminals,as bad as the nazi's

[Jcrowley]

3. Birth amid the bloodshed

Birth amid the bloodshed, then some tough choices


Iraqi parents agonise over fleeing their homeland to protect their children

Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
Saturday March 3, 2007
The Guardian

When Ahmad Khidr's wife, Nadia, was close to her pregnancy's full term, the Shia grocer drove her to a friend's house each evening before the curfew began.
"We were terrified she would go into labour during the night," said Ahmad, 23. "I did not want to risk taking her to a hospital at night. But there was a midwife living in the house opposite my friend's house. I would pick her up in the morning and take her home. And in the end the baby did come during the night."

Ahmad and Nadia were sitting playing with Mahdi, now six months old. "It is a headache for everyone having a child. Some people spend two or three nights at the hospital waiting for the baby to be born. But then it is very expensive. It can cost them $500 <£257> in fees even before the mother goes into labour. I am a poor man. I could not afford that. I even had to borrow money for the midwife's fees, so I needed to be sure she was close to a midwife."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2025756,00.html

[Jcrowley]

4. A child's nightmare

Bombs, bad guys haunt Baghdad’s kids' dreams
Years of war take emotional, physical toll on capital's youngest residents

Updated: 11:50 a.m. CT March 8, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi children are haunted by dreams of bad guys wielding knives or kidnapping relatives. For some, like 13-year-old Zaman, the nightmares become reality. She was abducted, beaten and threatened with rape.

“Zaman suffers from shaking, nervousness, a stutter and sleep disorder,” said Haider Abdul-Muhsin, a psychiatrist at Baghdad’s Ibn Rushd hospital who treats children suffering the consequences of war, four years after the U.S. invasion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17514498/

[AwakeAtLast]

5. K & R #5!

I learned an Iraqi children's singing game at a workshop (I teach music). I fear they will forget their own games or not be able to pass them down. :cry:

[truedelphi]

6. There was a report about a year ago that The british troops

Were as scared of going through an American run checkpoint as just about any thing - and supposedly they are part of our coalition!

I cannot even imagine what it is like if you are an Iraqi.

[cassiepriam]

7. The damage done to Iraq will last for generations. It will be America's shame for generations.

[malaise]

8. Bush is winning hearts and minds

NOT

[Jcrowley]

9. Faces of grief

Iraqi girls watch as a U.S. army soldier from the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment holds a hand gun that he found while searching their home in western Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, Iraq, Wednesday, March 21, 2007.

U.S. troops conducted a major house to house search in parts of Ghazaliyah Wednesday. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

I cannot imagine what it would feel like to have foreign troops inside my bedroom going through my belongings. This is beyond ridiculous.

http://facesofgrief.blogspot.com/2007/03/032207-part-five.html