Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos
Malnutrition Nearly Double What It Was Before Invasion

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly
doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months
ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the
interim Iraqi government.

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5
steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent
this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in
cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies
and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly
400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition
characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

Suad Ahmed's 4-month-old granddaughter, Hiba, has chronic diarrhea, a
common ailment among Iraqi children under 5. (Karl Vick -- The
Washington Post)

"These figures clearly indicate the downward trend," said Alexander
Malyavin, a child health specialist with the UNICEF mission to Iraq.

The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across a country
convulsed by instability and mismanagement. While attacks by insurgents
have grown more violent and more frequent, deteriorating basic services
take lives that many Iraqis said they had expected to improve under
American stewardship.

Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a
central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far
higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A809-2004Nov20.html

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