Kindness Or Bombs - You Choose

Photo-Essay - This whole USA-Iraq War crisis boils down to two things: either you support a mass killing of children option, or you subscribe to an ongoing course of diplomatic resolution. It is your personal choice. Here, courtesy of UNICEF, Scoop presents a Photo-Essay we have titled: A Race Against Time. And yes it is running out.

Sixty per cent of Iraq’s entire population depends on monthly government food rations, making them extremely vulnerable to any disruption in these supplies in the event of conflict. Widespread poverty and crumbling infrastructure, the result of years of conflict and 12 years of international economic sanctions, affect all sectors, including massive deterioration of the country's water and sanitation systems.

In December 2002 and January 2003, the situation of children and women in Iraq remains critical. One million children under five (almost 25 per cent of children this age) in southern and central Iraq continue to suffer from chronic malnutrition.

This suffering is despite a decline in severe under-five malnutrition rates from a high of 11 per cent in 1996 to a current rate of four per cent in 2002. The decline is attributed to several factors, including increased food distributions under the Oil-for-Food Programme (that followed the lifting of the UN sanction cap on export sales of Iraqi oil), improved rainfall and harvests, and the success of UNICEF- supported nutrition screening programmes for children. Information provided by the United Nations UNICEF programme.

(Left-right) Yonus Salman, 15, and his brother Qarar, 14, stand in front the scrap yard where they work in Baghdad, the capital. They earn 1,500 and 1,200 Iraqi dinars a day, respectively (less than US $1.00 each). Together with another brother, they give all their earnings to their parents to help cover household expenses.

Working with the Government, local authorities, other UN organizations, and NGOs, UNICEF is assisting with the construction and rehabilitation of schools, primary health care centres, and water treatment and distribution systems; supporting annual nutrition screening of a million children in southern and central Iraq and another 1.1 million in northern Iraq; participating in country-wide measles and polio immunization campaigns; providing essential food and medical supplies; supporting information campaigns promoting breastfeeding, better parenting and safe hygiene; assisting with training programmes for teachers, birth attendants, engineers and water system operators; promoting strengthened female literacy, girls’ education, early child development and vocational skills training initiatives; and strengthening emergency planning in the event of escalated conflict.

A boy is vaccinated against polio, part of a door-to-door sub-National Immunization Days (NIDs) campaign against the disease, in the Al-Khamayal neighbourhood in Saddam City, a section of Baghdad, the capital. There have been no new cases of polio in Iraq since 1999.

Photo courtesy of UNICEF and by Shehzad Noorani, Iraq. These images are copyright to UNICEF and are not for use without the expressed permission of UNICEF.

The full monthly ration for one person that is contained in ‘food baskets’, distributed by the Government in central and southern parts of the country, is displayed in a market in Baghdad, the capital. Food baskets are also distributed in the autonomously administered northern region by the World Food Programme (WFP). The distributions are part of the Oil-for- Food Programme (a UN-approved process whereby a percentage of funds from external Iraqi oil sales are spent on food and medicines for humanitarian relief). One person’s rations consist of: 200 grams of tea, 250 grams of chick peas, 125 grams of beans, 125 grams of lentils, 1 kilogram of cooking oil, 2 kilograms of sugar, 3 kilograms of rice, 8 kilograms of flour, 125 grams of powdered milk (for adults), 100 grams of iodized salt, 8 tins (6 kilograms) of Dielac (baby formula) and 800 grams of Ridelac (supplementary baby food). Also included are: 2 bars of soap and 500 grams of powdered detergent. UNICEF is promoting replacement of the baby formula and supplementary food with additional food for pregnant or lactating women, to encourage breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is particularly important for infants in Iraq given the deteriorated state of the water and sanitation systems.

Photo courtesy of UNICEF and by Shehzad Noorani, Iraq. These images are copyright to UNICEF and are not for use without the expressed permission of UNICEF.

Using a UNICEF-supplied standing height board, a small boy’s height is measured by a woman health worker at a Community Child Care Unit (CCCU) in the Al-Khamayal neighbourhood in Saddam City, a section of Baghdad, the capital. The 3,000 CCCUs in the central and southern regions of Iraq were created to monitor child nutrition levels and have been a key factor in the drop in under-five chronic malnutrition rates since these rates peaked in 1996.

Photo courtesy of UNICEF and by Shehzad Noorani, Iraq. These images are copyright to UNICEF and are not for use without the expressed permission of UNICEF.

Shrouq Habash, 15, hangs laundry on a line, while her sister, Duaa, 10, plays with younger girls in the courtyard of their house in the old section of the southern city of Basra. Shrouq is in sixth grade at the Al-Huda Primary School for Girls. She lives with her mother, younger sister and two married siblings and their families. Shrouq’s father abandoned the family, and their mother works as a cleaner at Shrouq’s school where she earns 11,000 Iraqi dinars a month (less than US $5.00). In addition to her own schoolwork, Shrouq helps her mother clean the school, does domestic work for an elderly woman (earning 10,000 Iraqi dinars a month) and helps with chores at home.

Photo courtesy of UNICEF and by Shehzad Noorani, Iraq. These images are copyright to UNICEF and are not for use without the expressed permission of UNICEF.

Ameer Hayder (foreground, right) sits with his parents and five younger siblings on the floor in the one room in which they all live, on the roof of a dilapidated building in Baghdad, the capital. The rent is 17,500 Iraqi dinars per month. Ameer earns 1,000 Iraqi dinars (less than US $0.50) per day working at a blacksmith's shop. His father sells fruit at the corner from a small cart. None of the children attend school.

Photo courtesy of UNICEF and by Shehzad Noorani, Iraq. These images are copyright to UNICEF and are not for use without the expressed permission of UNICEF.

A woman holds her toddler, standing outside the Al-Alwiyah Children's Hospital in Baghdad, the capital.

'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' MATTHEW - Chapter 25 - Vs 40.

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