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UN Sanctions Claim Nearly 10,000 Iraqi Lives in March: Report
Nearly 10,000 Iraqi children and elderly people died in March due to malnutrition and medicine shortages caused by the decade-old United Nations sanctions, an official report said on Monday.
Some 6,640 children under five died of diarrhea, pneumonia, respiratory infections and malnutrition, while about 3,100 elderly people died of heart diseases, diabetes, hypertension and malignant neoplasms, said the report issued by Iraq's Health Ministry.
This was in a sharp contrast with the same period in 1989 when only 362 children and 407 elderly people died, it added.
Iraq, which has been under the stringent economic sanctions after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, has claimed that the trade embargo has led to the humanitarian disaster.
Iraq has demanded the U.N. to lift the sanctions. It accuses the United States and Britain of impeding the implementation of the U. N. oil-for-food program by putting on hold vital contracts Iraq has signed with other countries to buy food, medicine and other necessities.
The oil-for-food deal, launched in December 1996, allows Iraq to sell oil to buy humanitarian goods to offset the impacts of the sanctions. However, Iraq complains that the deal has failed to meet its humanitarian need.
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