Kathy's visit to Amiriyah shelter in 12-2-1998

  These are the children of Iraq
  

Dhuha and her mother Dhuha means "sunrise" Dhuha suffered from leukemia with no medical supplies to treat her

 

Khalid and his mother Khalid means "eternal" He suffered from Neuroblastoma.  Died Aug. 1997


 

Zahra 7 months old. Nutritional marasmus and very close to death. Feb. 1998


 

Nassar, age 1 Severe malnutrition.  Weight: 9.47 lb.  Ideal weight: 22 lb.
 

 

Earlier this month, several members of the Iraq Sanctions Challenge stood at the bedside of Mustafa, one of at least a dozen dying children in a crowded, wretched ward of the 

main hospital in Basra, Iraq's southern port city. His mother, tall, thin and quite beautiful, sat cross legged on the mattress beside him, waving away flies, as the doctor explained to us that the child, hospitalized for the past twenty days, now suffered from dehydration, diarrhea, acute renal failure and extensive brain atrophy.

  
  

Tragically, there are thousands more children suffering and dying because of trade sanctions.
 
Just one month ago, US/ UK bombardment of Iraq seemed almost inevitable. Even though    the most comprehensive economic sanctions ever inflicted in modern history have already crippled Iraq, slaughtering over 1/2 million      children under age 5, the US and the UK were    poised for further assault. Today, the US still threatens air attacks upon Iraq, massive  strikes that would heap more agony on    civilians who've endured a seven year state of siege.
 
February 12, 1998:  Report from Voices in the Wilderness, Baghdad, Iraq, by Kathy Kelly Today is the day when many thousands of people across Baghdad are conscious that it is the seventh year since two astonishingly smart bombs penetrated the ventilation system of the Amiriyah shelter. All of the people huddled inside, at least 500 civilians, who had sought a safe night of shelter, were melted.
 
"From previous trips, we knew exactly where to find overwhelming evidence of a weapon of  mass destruction. Inspectors have only to enter   the wards of any hospital in Iraq to see that   the sanctions themselves are a lethal weapon,   destroying the lives of Iraq's most vulnerable people. In children's wards, tiny victims writhe in pain, on blood-stained mats, bereft of anesthetics and antibiotics. Thousands of children, poisoned by contaminated water, die from dysentery, cholera, and diarrhea. Others  succumb to respiratory infections that become     fatal full body infections. Five thousand children, under age five, perish each month." -Kathy Kelly, March 9, 1998


 
YOU CAN HELP by writing your governmental representatives and supporting Voices in the Wilderness' brave actions to bring medical supplies to these beautiful children, the innocent victims of war and politics.
  
Pictures of Iraqi children by Chuck Quilty and journals of visitors to Iraq from Voices in the Wilderness


http://www.crystalbay.net/town/iraqpictures.html