More Iraqis suffering now

2005-03-31 14:36

Geneva - The war in Iraq and its aftermath have almost doubled malnutrition rates among many Iraqi children, a United Nations specialist on hunger has told the world's major human rights body.

Acute malnutrition rates among Iraqi children under five rose late last year to 7.7% from 4% after Saddam's ouster in April 2003, said Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food.

Malnutrition, which is exacerbated by a lack of clean water and inadequate sanitation, is a major child killer in poor countries. Children who manage to survive are usually physically and mentally impaired for the rest of their lives and are more vulnerable to disease.

Acute malnutrition signifies that a child is actually wasting away.

The situation facing Iraqi youngsters is "a result of the war led by coalition forces," claimed Ziegler, an outspoken Swiss sociology professor and former lawmaker whose previous targets have included Swiss banks, China, Brazil and Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Overall, more than a quarter of Iraqi children don't get enough to eat, Ziegler told a meeting of the 53-nation commission, the top UN rights watchdog, which is halfway through its annual six-week session.

The United States delegation and other coalition countries did not respond to the report.

Ziegler's criticism on Wednesday was in line with previous studies of the food crisis in Iraq since the US-led war to oust Saddam two years ago.

In November, the Norwegian-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science released a report that found that malnutrition had reached 7.7%among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and five years.

Officials from the institute, which conducted a survey with the UN Development Programme and Iraq's Central office for Statistics and Information Technology, said the Iraqi malnutrition rate was similar to the level in some hard-hit African countries.

Ziegler did not mention the insurgency in Iraq, something often cited by aid groups.

Late last year, Carol Bellamy, head of the UN children's agency UNICEF, said there was little relief workers could do to ease the plight of Iraqi children because fighting hampers or prevents most aid operations in the country. UNICEF officials were not immediately available to say if the situation had changed in recent months.

The insurgency has led to problems getting adequate supplies of food into hot spots, particularly in and around Sunni areas to the north and west of Baghdad.

Ziegler also cited an October 2004 US study that estimated as many as 100 000 more Iraqis - many of them women and children - had died since the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq than would normally have died. - AP

- SAPA