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FROM: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,939170,00.html
Bombs silent, but the
children still suffer
A Five-Year-Old Boy
Blinded When He Picked Up A Cluster Bomb While He Played With Friends
Is Just The Latest Victim As The Agony Goes On
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Friday April 18, 2003
Children lying on dirty
vinyl mattresses, desperate mothers clutching whimpering infants, harassed
doctors signing prescriptions that they barely have time to read - a
week after the guns fell silent the scene at the Central Children's
hospital in the Iraqi capital is still one of war-related chaos, relieved
only by tireless improvisation by dedicated staff.
Ali Ismail Abbas, the
boy who lost his parents [+14
other family members] and his arms in an American
missile strike and became an international symbol of Iraqi civilians'
suffering, was lucky to be flown to Kuwait this week.
For Iraq's other children
the agony caused by war goes on. Doctors have
not been able to keep count of the numbers injured in the war:
after the failure of the city's telephone system no one was able to
coordinate figures. Hospitals cannot contact each other except by sending
messengers.
At least six children
were wounded by cluster bombs this week
and taken to the Kadhimiya hospital because it is nearest to where they
live. Clutching his mother's hand as he lay on a mattress, Ali
Mustafa's head is half hidden by a bandage. He is a "post-war"
victim. The five-year-old was playing with his brother and two friends
earlier this week when he picked up an odd round object. It was an unexploded
cluster bomb, one of thousands that lie around
Baghdad. It exploded in his hands, blinding him. His legs,
scarred with shrapnel, will heal but Ali Mustafa's
sight will never return.
"I have two wounded
children, and two neighbours also have this tragedy," said Ghaleb
Mustafa, Ali's father. Across the ward Adel Hamid was looking after
his 10-year-old nephew who lay with a criss-cross set of large bandages
on his stomach.
"I wish he could
go abroad for treatment too," he said, having heard of Ali Ismail
Abbas's good fortune.
"I'm from the same
part of Baghdad, known as Harir city. It was
exposed to massive bombardment by cluster bombs.
Four people died and
17 were injured at the time," said Issam Khuleif, the hospital's
chief registrar.
Even if they escaped
direct injury from bombing, thousands of Iraqi
children are continuing to suffer from the chaos created by war.
Fuel shortages and the lack of electricity make it hard for hospitals
to cope, leaving patients without proper care.
Racing between two small
cubicles, Abdul Hamid al-Sadoon, a doctor at the Central hospital, is
surrounded by anxious parents. As the taxi
system slowly revives in Baghdad now black market petrol
is being sold from jerry-cans on street corners in the absence of electricity
for the official pumps, parents who could not take their
sick children out of the house during the war are hastening for help.
Few doctors' surgeries
are open and the children's hospital is besieged. If the children were
on medication before and their parents bring an old prescription, an
orderly writes out a new one and stamps it. Five mothers with infants
are pushing towards the vinyl mattress behind which Dr al- Sadoon sits.
They put their babies down and he signs the
form, often without time to check the child.
A nine-year-old boy with
a brain tumour sits in a wheelchair to one side. "He
needs chemotherapy," says the doctor. "How can we provide
it now? We still have the basics in the store, but unless
new supplies start being sent today we will run out in a few weeks.
"We need everything
- gauze, cotton, gloves, silk for stitching, needles, x-ray film,"
he says. "Iraq will be Iraq. We will not
accept the United States or Britain as occupiers, but because
the conditions here are miserable I'm requesting the United Nations,
the United States, the United Kingdom, or any country to help us."
The US failure so
far to restore the electricity system
which it damaged in the war has also kept Baghdad's
oxygen factory shut. The children's hospital needs between
six and 10 canisters a day, and the supplies in store have almost run
out.
Baghdad has 33 hospitals
for a population of five million but several are closed because of power
shortages or because transport problems prevent staff getting to work.
Many doctors are working at the hospitals nearest their homes.
Another doctor rushes
in. A baby in the nearby ward has died.
Dr al-Sadoon hastens to the bed where a distraught mother in a long
black dress is sobbing.
"It's a pulmonary
problem," he explains. "The parents live 50km from Baghdad.
Before the war they could have gone 5km to
a local children's clinic, but it's closed because of lack of electricity.
"So parents leave
it to the final stage before they bring the child here, and often it's
too late. This one could have been saved."
FROM: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,939170,00.html
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