CHILDREN ARE DYING

From Save the Children:


Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150 percent since 1990, more than any other country. Even before the latest war, Iraqi mothers and children were facing a grave humanitarian crisis caused by years of repression, conflict and external sanctions. Since 2003, electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation have worsened already difficult living conditions. Some 122,000 Iraqi children (1 in 8) died in 2005 before reaching their fifth birthday.¹³³ More than half of these deaths were among newborn babies in the first month of life. Pneumonia and diarrhea are the other two major killers of children in Iraq, together accounting for over 30 percent of child deaths.¹³⁴ Only 35 percent of Iraqi children are fully immunized, and more than one-fifth (21 percent) are severely or moderately stunted.¹³⁵ Conservative estimates place increases in infant mortality following the 2003 invasion of Iraq at 37 percent.<sup>136

133</sup> UNICEF. State of the World’s Children 2007.
p.103
¹³⁴WHO.World Health Statistics 2006. p.25
¹³⁵UNICEF. Monitoring the Situation of Women and
Children: Findings from the Iraq Multiple Indicator
Cluster Survey 2006: Preliminary Report. (March
2007) www.childinfo.org/mics/mics3
/docs/countryreports/MICS3_Iraq_Preliminar
yReport_2006_eng.pdf
¹³⁶Roberts, Les, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield,
Jamal Khudhairi and Gilbert Burnham.
“Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion
of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet.
Vol. 364, No. 9448, November 20, 2004.
pp.1857-1864