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TechnoratiWASHINGTON -Two wars and a decade of sanctions have led to a huge rise in the mortality rate among young children in Iraq, leaving statistics that were once the envy of the Arab world now comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa.
A new report shows that in the years since 1990, Iraq has seen its child mortality rate soar by 125 per cent, the highest increase of any country in the world. Its rate of deaths of children under five now matches that of Mauritania. 
Jeff MacAskey, head of health for the Save the Children charity, which published the report, said: "Iraq, Botswana and Zimbabwe all have different reasons for making the least amount of progress on child mortality. Whether it's the impact of war, HIV/Aids or poverty the consequences are equally devastating. Yet other countries such as Malawi and Nepal have shown that despite conflict and poverty child mortality rates can be reversed."
Figures collated by the charity show that in 1990 Iraq's mortality rate for under-fives was 50 per 1,000 live births. In 2005 it was 125. While many other countries have higher rates - Angola, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, all have rates above 200 - the increase in Iraq is higher than elsewhere.
Egypt, Indonesia and Bangladesh have made the most progress in tackling child mortality, while Iraq, Botswana and Zimbawe have regressed the most.
Sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime were imposed by the UN in 1990 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and remained in place until after the coalition invasion in 2003. The sanctions, encouraged by the US as a means to topple Saddam, were some of the most comprehensive ever put in place and had a devastating effect on Iraq's infrastructure and health services.
Precisely how many children died because of sanctions is unknown but a report in 1999 from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), suggested that between 1991 and 1998 an additional 500,000 died.
Denis Halliday, who resigned as the UN's humanitarian coordinator in protest at the sanctions, said at the time: "We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral."
Kathy Kelly, an anti-war campaigner with Voices in the Wilderness, said last night: "The punishment of children through the economic and military war against Iraq has been the greatest scandal."
Save the Children's report, State of the World's Mothers 2007, found the majority of child deaths occur in just 10 countries - either those with large populations such as India and China, or those with sparse health services such as Afghanistan and Angola. Aids remains one the central factors affecting mortality rates.
"More than 10 million children under age five still die each year. That's almost 28,000 a day, almost all in developing countries," said the charity's US president, Charles MacCormack. "Vaccines, oral rehydration therapy and insecticide-treated mosquito nets are not expensive. Yet, sadly, many mothers and children lack access to these life-saving measures."
The 10 worst countries
Nine of the 10 countries with the worst infant mortality rates are in sub-Saharan Africa. The other one is Afghanistan, which has the second-worst rate.
1. Sierra Leone: 282 (per 1,000 live births)
2. Afghanistan: 257
3. Niger: 256
4. Liberia: 235
5. Somalia: 225
6. Mali: 218
7. Chad: 208
8= Democratic Republic of Congo: 205
8= Equatorial Guinea: 205
10. Rwanda: 203
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
17 Comments so far
Show AllFor a long time now I've been thinking I just need to emigrate. When most of my labor supports a corrupt government or enriches the ruling elite (that runs the corrupt government), what's the point of being an American? We should all leave and refuse to work for them. Or do as the French did in 1789. Off with their heads!
lashar, The United States has created suicide bombers from what otherwise might only have been dissidents. The sanctions that starved and the bombs that maimed Iraqis drove them to despair left them no recourse except the most extreme, lowest tech, least expensive answer to the terror visited on them by the US taxpayer.
Who asked us to take out Sadam? We invaded Iraq. To call this "trouble making" is to call a camel kind.
This country never lifted a finger to remove Hitler until Pearl Harbor. Spare us your glorification of US meddling in the affairs of others.
At least the Bush administration was able to stop that family planning money. These people have not been abstaining. Think how bad it would be if condoms and birth control pills were available.
Karma
It is rare when politicians suffer the consequences of their actions. "What goes around comes around" is usually something that citizens have to deal with. Children are always the ones that suffer the most, since they carry the trauma with them for the rest of their lives, if they survive at all.
With our current practices of government (political, military and arms industry) and our foreign policies, it won't be long until America will be faced with the consequences of our past and current actions.
It is never to late to change.
"I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul."--Job
What to expect from a country in which the best they can do for their children in trouble is to sentenc them to life in prison without parole. The US has over 2,000 teenagers serving life without parole--the rest of the world has under 100. (From last night's Frontline.)
This is one citizen who is fed up and utterly of ashamed of our behavior on the world stage.
As the dominant and dying capitalist state, the US is sending it's mercenary armies further and deeper abroad in it's final gasp.
Like all previous empires, it will kill anyone and anything in it's desperate death dance and denial.
The US has always been "Addicted to War". Addiction has no morality.
Native North Americans were the first victims of our addiction to war...we have always been death.
The blood is on our hands.
These casualties, disrupted lives, interrupted family trees, dead soldiers, displaced people, that's a price our governments are willing to pay. I supported a vietnamese couple whose baby was dying due to a genetic defect, both parents were born with this defect, the agent orange is sending a greeting card. Now these children are suffering and the ones who survive will carry physical, mental scars and memories. Will depleted uranium send greeting cards to the next generation?
Perhaps this headline will get some attention from the average citizen. There is so much death in our headlines that the deaths of adults, particularly men, barely elicit a shrug anymore.
Who says child sacrifice is a barbaric practice of a bygone age? It is very much alive and well.
What part of "THOU SHALT NOT KILL" do the leaders of your 'Christian' nation not understand?
This is such a disgrace. I am usually fairly articulate but cannot come up with the words to describe the horror we have inflicted upon the innocent.
Rich men havee always sacrificed children to their greater wealth. They only care about their money and not the children, women or ordinary people. We are all worms to them. Tis a pity, but that is how it is. I have been ashamed to be called an American for a very long time.
Disgraceful, disgusting and inexcusable. The "leaders" of this country will burn in hell for these atrocities. We will never be able to atone for what they have done in our names.
Have we no pity, honor, or shame?
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag,, and begin slitting throats.
HL Mencken
It is the poor who pay for everything. Nobody owns less property than a child and in spite of the lip service implying children come first, they always come last whether at home or abroad. It's always been that way but not to the extremes these worshipers of Ronald Reagan have taken it.
There has never been a greater enemy of the lower and middle class than the Gipper and the neocons are shameless in their fervor for this champion of the top 5% owners of property.
The headline is misleading. The article makes it clear that the increase in infant mortality started before the war because of the draconian sanctions heavily pushed by the Clinton administration:
"Precisely how many children died because of sanctions is unknown but a report in 1999 from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), suggested that between 1991 and 1998 an additional 500,000 died."
To which then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright famously replied "We think the price was worth it."
The willingness of the US ruling class to sacrifice helpless children to further expand their power and wealth is bi-partisan. As Nietzche points out, their callousness toward children doesn't end within the borders of the US. In 1970, the poverty rate for US children was 14%-15%. Today it's 17%, even though the economy has expanded greatly since then:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov3.html
Let's not forget that the US is one of only 2 countries in the world that hasn't ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child