Iraqi Children Facing Threat of Bomblets Left over by US Forces

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 20, 2003

Iraqi Children Facing Threat of Bomblets Left over by US Forces

Although the war is nearing the end, Iraqi children in Iraq are facing another danger of bomblets left over by the US forces as the number of casualties kept rising in the past days.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

Although the war is nearing the end, Iraqi children in Iraq are facing another danger of bomblets left over by the US forces as the number of casualties kept rising in the past days.

Two children were killed and two others were injured Saturday afternoon when a bomblet that they found at a garden in Rahnania, western Baghdad, exploded, a doctor at the Al-Karkh hospital told Xinhua.

Ali Mahbi Kazin, a 12-year-old boy who was injured in the blast,said he and his friends found something on the ground that they did not know as a bomb. The device exploded when they played with it.

Kazin's left arm and other parts of his body were seriously injured by the shrapnels.

The doctor at the Al-Karkh hospital said that it had already received several victims killed or wounded by bombs left over by the war in Iraq which started on March 20.

In another similar incident, a 48-year-old mother of three lost one of her legs in a bomb explosion in Baghdad, which also injured two of her children. The bomb went off when she and her children were walking in the Ikhlas street in western Baghdad.

The woman said her family was nearly paralyzed by the tragic incident, because she was the only breadwinner of the family after her husband was disabled during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.

The Al-Karkh hospital, like others in Iraq, also suffers from shortage of medicine and other medical equipment due to the war and looting threat.

Hospital officials said some of its medicine and medical equipment were plundered by looters over the past few days. Now the doctors have to guard the hospital to protect it from further mob attacks apart from taking care of the patients.

In another bomb explosion Saturday, four US soldiers from the 101st Airborne's 3rd Brigade, and an Iraqi girl were wounded Saturday when the girl handed them a M-42 bomblet, a canister-size piece of a cluster bomb.

Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the wounded soldiers' unit, said one soldier's leg was amputated, while the 7-year-old girl suffered a hand injury and was taken away by her family to a hospital.

Linnington said there are still "some remnants" of US ordnance around Baghdad. He said an Iraqi man was killed Friday and three soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were wounded when aM-42 bomblet exploded under similar circumstances.

In the Dura neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad, residents havebeen urging the US forces to remove the cluster bomblets scattered through the area.

Human rights groups have strongly criticized the US forces for using cluster bombs in Iraq. Each cluster bomb contains about 200 small bomblets, some of which may not explode on impact but can explode when they are picked up or played with.

Questions?Comments? Click here

Iraqis Stage Anti-US Rally; Saddam Reportedly Appears Before Public

No Staff of Iraqi Embassy in China Seeking Asylum ( 3 Messages)

Change of DPRK's Attitude Attracts Attention ( 3 Messages)

Beijing Takes Innovative Measures to Control SARS: WHO Expert ( 4 Messages)

China Sees 9.9 Percent GDP Growth in First Quarter ( 5 Messages)

Seize Opportunities to Speed up Development: President ( 3 Messages)