UN finds mortality rate of Iraqi children doubled under sanctions

The mortality rate of Iraqi children has doubled since sanctions were imposed in August 1990 after Baghdad invaded Kuwait. This is revealed in a report published by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) this week.

The survey conducted by Unicef covers 24,000 households with children under five year of age. In the heavily populated regions of central and southern Iraq, deaths have increased from 56 to 131 per 1,000. The rate for infants below one year has risen from 47 to 108 per 1,000.

Ms Carol Bellamy, Unicef's executive director, blamed both the international community and the Iraqi government for the worsening humanitarian emergency in Iraq. "I don't think the international community can just assume they have no responsibility and . . . that oil-for-food will take care of everything," she said.

Under this programme Baghdad is allowed to export $5.2 billion worth of oil every six months to purchase foodstuffs and medical supplies.

Ms Bellamy also called upon the Iraqi authorities to co-operate with the UN Security Council so that sanctions could be eased or lifted. "I don't want to let the (Iraqi) government off the hook," she said.

Mr Benon Sevan, current head of the UN's humanitarian relief programme in Iraq, recently criticised the Iraqi authorities for hoarding medical supplies and equipment in warehouses and making contracts with unreliable suppliers for defective products. But he also criticised the Security Council committee for delaying and denying approval of urgently needed supplies.

His Irish predecessor, Mr Denis Halliday, resigned last year to protest at the UN's continuation of the punitive sanctions regime during which, so far, 1.5 million Iraqis, one-third of them children under the age of five, have died.

In his review of the oil-for-food programme published in April, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, made it clear that the oil-for-food scheme was not designed to meet the long-term humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people but was meant to provide only temporary relief.

Ten million tonnes of food has reached Iraq under the programme. Each Iraqi receives rations of flour, rice, sugar, tea and pulses and small amounts of cheese and powdered milk and cheese.

The situation in the government-controlled areas of the country contrasts sharply with the picture in the Kurdish "safe haven" in northern Iraq. A survey of 16,000 households there showed a declining mortality rate for the under-fives over the past five years. Before sanctions that rate was 80 per 1,000; now it stands at 72.

Ms Bellamy said the situation in Kurdistan was better because large amounts of aid had flowed into the area as soon as the 1991 war ended. Also, the UN has greater control over distribution of supplies, agricultural yields are higher and the frontiers are more "porous", allowing for smuggling, she said.

Humanitarian assistance began to reach the government-controlled areas, where 85 per cent of Iraqis live, only after April 1996 when the oil-for-food programme was launched. Public health has deteriorated there for a variety of reasons. Rations are insufficient and do not provide a healthy diet: 33 per cent of the children suffer from malnutrition and are at risk of stunted growth and retardation as well as death.

The US and Britain, which dominate the Security Council committee, ban anything which could have a military application: ambulances, chemicals for purifying water, pumps and sewage extraction machinery, hospital equipment and medicines for the treatment of cancer, heart ailments and numerous diseases, educational materials and medical and scientific journals.

An elderly Iraqi lady recently in Baghdad commented: "We wait at home to die. There are electricity cuts of 10 hours a day, so we roast in 40 degrees of heat. Since there are no spare parts everything is breaking down. There is no petrol for our cars.

"Unemployment is soaring. People out of work rob to feed their families. There are lots of murders. Iraq is a rich country dying of sanctions."