Wounds run deep for children of Iraq war

[babylonsister]

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=57849

Wounds run deep for children of Iraq war
BAGHDAD: The day his mother and brother died is permanently one that eight-year-old Iraqi Ziad Irhaima will never forget, as the cauterised stump of one of his arms serves as a permanent reminder. Irhaima’s lost family members are only two of the countless and largely anonymous victims of the more than four years of bloodshed that has convulsed Iraq and inflicted deep and lasting wounds on its children.

The UN children’s fund Unicef has called for an additional $42 million to fund child health initiatives and warned of the dire state of children’s health in the war-torn country. The spectre of disease is all the more frightening because of the gutting of the country’s public health system, which has suffered from a mass exodus of doctors and other trained professionals. The violence and displacement has also cut off thousands of families from health care, preventing children from receiving treatment for the physical and psychological wounds inflicted by the appalling violence.

“I will never forget the image of my mother and brother lying on the ground covered with blood,” Ziad says, referring to the aftermath of a car bomb intended for the local courthouse in his hometown of Kirkuk, north of Baghdad. His physical injuries will not prevent him from one day leading a relatively normal life, but the psychological impact of the attack will last a lifetime, as it will for thousands of Iraqi children.

Nawzad Mahmud, nine, escaped a similar car bomb with only a wound to his right leg, but when the dust cleared he was surrounded by the smouldering corpses of four other children.

“Nawzad is bitter. It was so frustrating for him to see the other kids at school that he quit,” said his father, Mahmud Shakir. The relentless violence in Iraq will leave behind not only an entire generation of traumatised children like Nawzad, but hundreds of permanently disabled children without proper medical care.

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[ck4829]

1. K&R

[IndyOp]

2. God bless the beasts & children. (n/t)

[aquart]

3. If our stated goal was to create a generation of terrorists

we couldn't have done better. The rage of these children will come back to torment the world. I read a profile of how a terrorist was made in the NYT decades ago. Political instability plus ill health in childhood as I recall. How's the medical situation in Iraq?

[az chela]

4. Does anyone truly know what this is doing to the Iraqi's??

These were innocent people who held the keys to the oil and the dictator decided he should steal it for the have and have mores!!!!
We can never undo this abomination of innocent people but somehow we have to stop bushco.
Their blood is on all our hands for allowing george and dick to stay in the white house and not be put behind bars!!!!!
If the dems cant do it then they have to go and we need to start kicking them out,also cut off all donations to them

[FloridaJudy]

5. Yet another example of W's "Culture of Life"

What a loathsome, despicable, cretinous excuse for a human being.
K&R

[G_j]

6. heartbreaking... K&R

[slipslidingaway]

7. K&R n/t