Iraq Health Articles

Walid Waleed, interviewd by John Malkin
February 2008

Walid Waleed is 38 years old and was born in the Alkhaalij quarter of Baghdad. He now lives in the country side in a village in south-east Baghdad. He was married in 1997 and now has two boys and three girls; Ows 10, Mohammad 8, Nowras 6, Nibras 4 and less than one year old Ziena. Before the violence he lived as one big family, with about twenty-two people, but now they live in individual temporary houses. Walid studies journalism at Baghdad University and got practical experience as a guide for foreign journalists for many years. He has done interviews for magazines, newspapers and TV and helped Japanese producers make a documentary film about children during the US/UN economic sanctions. He recently produced an autobiographocal documentary about the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

John Malkin interviewed Walid in January 2008. John is a writer, musician and author of “Sounds of Freedom”, a collection of interviews with musicians concerning spirituality and social change. He is a regular contributor to Good Times Weekly of Santa Cruz, California.

JM: What kind of newspapers/TV are available in Iraq now? How do people get news there?

June 2007

Compiled by Ben Meyer
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Following are links to key reports on the health care and humanitarian crisis that is harming the people of Iraq.

June 18, 2007

BAGHDAD, 18 June 2007 (IRIN) - Sunni families remaining in Shia neighbourhoods of Baghdad are being forced to flee their homes: A 72-hour deadline announced by militants for them to leave these areas or face death expires on 18 June.

The ultimatum has put many Iraqi families in a desperate situation and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are worried as displacement camps could not cope with all the internally displaced people (IDPs) that this ultimatum might trigger.

Published: 22 September 2006
Independent

They have organised elections, and pushed through a new democratically-ratified constitution that has given birth to a national government with a true mandate. They have sent more of their own troops, and trained the locals. They have sacrificed some 2,700 of their servicemen and over $300bn (£1.6bn) of their taxpayers’ money. But nothing the Americans can do has stopped post-Saddam Iraq’s long slide into chaos and despair.

President Bush and his top aides still insist civil war has not broken out. That, however, is a matter of semantics after the latest UN report that almost 6,600 people died in sectarian violence in the last two months for which statistics are available - an “unprecedented” 3,590 in July, followed by 3009 in August.

By Dahr Jamail
Monday 22 May 2006

Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society. — Joan Ganz Cooney

If, as I would like to believe, the above quote suggests all children and not merely those born in Western democracies, I am no longer certain that we live in a civilized society.

That women and children suffer the most during times of war is not a new phenomenon. It is a reality as old as war itself. What Rumsfeld, Rice and other war criminals of the Cheney administration prefer to call “collateral damage” translates in English as the inexcusable murder of and other irreparable harm done to women, children and the elderly during any military offensive.

15 May 2006

By Fredrik Dahl

BAGHDAD, May 15 ( Reuters ) - Malnutrition among Iraqi children has reached alarming levels, according to a U.N.-backed government survey showing people are struggling to cope three years after U.S.-forces overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Nine percent — almost one in 10 — of children aged between six months and five years, suffered acute malnourishment, said the report on food security and vulnerability in Iraq.

“Children are…major victims of food insecurity,” it said, describing the situation as “alarming.”

IRIN
May 8, 2006

BAGHDAD, 8 May 2006 (IRIN) - One in three Iraqi children is malnourished and underweight, according to a report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Amman on 2 May.

“Under-nutrition should not be accepted in a country like Iraq, with its wealth of resources,” said UNICEF Special Representative for Iraq Roger Wright from the Jordanian capital, Amman. Wright added that ongoing insecurity served to deter parents from visiting health centres for essential services, while many health workers had been kidnapped or killed in different parts of the country.

By IRIN
April 25, 2006

BAGHDAD, 25 April IRIN - The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Monday that some 1,000 people living near the former Tuwaitha nuclear site faced serious health risks from lingering radiation.

Tuwaitha, situated some 20 km south of the capital, Baghdad, “is one of a number of sites in the country identified as needing decommissioning or remediation, where radioactive material was used or waste buried,” according to an IAEA statement.

(c) IRIN
April 17, 2006

BAGHDAD, 17 April (IRIN) - Residents of the Iraqi capital are complaining that a recently-imposed government curfew, aimed at deterring ongoing violence, is hampering access to medical care.

“My son had stomach pains two days ago, but I couldn’t take him to the hospital because we’re prohibited from leaving our homes - even for medical emergencies,” said Baghdad resident and father of four Abu Muhammad, 47.

With a curfew imposed from 11pm until 6am, no resident is allowed to venture outside between these times, while security forces have the right to shoot violators on sight. Anyone requiring medical assistance, therefore, must wait overnight to seek help.

IRIN News
April 11, 2006

BASRA, 11 April IRIN - As a result of water-borne diseases and a lack of medical supplies, infants born in the southern city of Basra are subject to abnormally high mortality rates, say officials of an international NGO devoted to child health issues.

“For weeks, there were no I.V. fluids available in the hospitals of Basra,” said Marie Fernandez, spokeswoman for European aid agency Saving Children from War. “As a consequence, many children, mainly under five-years old, died after suffering from extreme cases of diarrhoea.”