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Death Toll from Embargo over 1.3 Million: Iraq
More than 1.3 million Iraqi have died because of the decade-old devastating U.N. embargo, Iraq's Health Ministry said in a report released on Sunday.
The report said that from August 1990 till the end of last May, a total of 1,316,578 Iraqis perished due to the "disastrous effects" of the embargo on Iraq's health sector. Among the victims were 600,000 children under the age of five, it added.
The report pointed out that such a high mortality was caused by diarrhea, pneumonia, respiratory infections and other curable diseases.
Malnutrition was also attributed to the rise of mortality among children.
According to the report, the mortality rate among newborn children has risen to 207 per thousand, while before the embargo there were only 42 deaths per thousand.
Surgical operations have been decreased by 66 percent due to the acute shortage of medical appliances caused by the embargo, the report said.
Iraq has been under crippling U.N. embargo ever since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said in a recent report that life in Iraq is increasing desperate in spite of an oil-for-food deal intended to ease the bite of the U.N. embargo.
"Deteriorating living conditions, inflation, and low salaries make people's everyday lives a continuing struggle," the ICRC said.
Iraq claims that the U.N. oil-for-food program, which allows it to sell oil to buy humanitarian necessities, has failed to alleviate the sufferings of Iraqi people.
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