Iraqis 'worse off' in US hands

2004-05-13 06:54

London - Iraqi children are living in conditions worse than those endured under Saddam Hussein's regime and US sanctions, a children's rights organisation said on Wednesday, warning that they were experiencing a "humanitarian catastrophe".

"Every child has some level of psychological trauma," said Jo Baker, director of the London-based Child Victims of War.

"I have been to Iraq under Saddam and sanctions - most people know how bad things were - but what has happened this year has plunged Iraq into a plight which is actually far, far worse."

"If it is worse than sanctions and Saddam, then we are really talking about a humanitarian catastrophe," Baker said.

The organisation voiced worry over children detained by the US-led coalition in Iraq, in light of revelations of torture in the US and British prisons there.

It also warned that the US-led coalition's use of weapons containing depleted uranium was producing horrible birth defects and high cancer rates in Iraq.

Leukemia and other cancers have gone up in Iraq since the war, as have births of children with deformities, especially shrunken limbs and missing eyes, and still births, it said.

"We have discovered not one single batch of medicines has arrived in any hospital since occupation except those getting through carried by NGOs (non-governmental organisations)," Baker added.

- AFP