‘Soaring Child Mortality In Iraq’: But Who Cares?

(Photo courtesy care2.com)

“Infant mortality in Iraq soars as young pay the price for war,” writes Andrew Buncombe in The Independent.

“Two wars and a decade of sanctions have led to a huge rise in the mortality rate among young children in Iraq, leaving statistics that were once the envy of the Arab world now comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa.

“A new report shows that in the years since 1990, Iraq has seen its child mortality rate soar by 125 per cent, the highest increase of any country in the world. Its rate of deaths of children under five now matches that of Mauritania.

“Figures collated by the charity show that in 1990 Iraq’s mortality rate for under-fives was 50 per 1,000 live births. In 2005 it was 125. While many other countries have higher rates – Angola, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, all have rates above 200 – the increase in Iraq is higher than elsewhere.

“Precisely how many children died because of sanctions is unknown but a report in 1999 from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), suggested that between 1991 and 1998 an additional 500,000 died.

“Denis Halliday, who resigned as the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in protest at the sanctions, said at the time: ‘We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.’

“Kathy Kelly, an anti-war campaigner with Voices in the Wilderness, said last night: ‘The punishment of children through the economic and military war against Iraq has been the greatest scandal’.”

It is said that the test of any civilised country/society lies in its visible concern about women and children, especially during wars and conflicts. If it is absent then the thin line dividing civilised behaviour/thought and barbarism simply vanishes.

I have enjoyed writing for The Moderate Voice blog for more than a year now.

However, what I have experienced (and what has baffled me most) is the priority (in America?) to first ascertain whether a blogger/writer/commenter is a “leftist”, “moderate”, or a “rightist”, or a “liberal”, or a “neo-con”, or whatever.

This tendency to label would have appeared funny (if not eccentric)…but for the fact that even human tragedy and suffering are at times viewed from within the prism of these labels.

I wonder which label would cover the writer of this tragic story on the impact of war and conflict on the children in Iraq?