Thousands Die From Iraq Sanctions
Iraq's health minister claimed Tuesday that nearly 5,000 children under five died in March as a result of U.N. sanctions against his country. Omid Midhat Mubarak accused the United States and Britain of playing "terrible tricks" by holding up the import of life-saving medical aid to Iraq for political reasons.
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The children were among almost 15,000 people to die from "embargo-selected causes" such as malnutrition and lack of medicine, said Mubarak, who is attending a World Health Organization meeting that has members representing 191 countries.
Diseases such as cholera and scabies have returned from virtual elimination to be a major problem as a result of the economic embargo imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Mubarak said. The number of cholera cases annually has leapt to 486 last year from zero in 1989, said Mubarak.
The same causes of death, from respiratory infection to liver and cardiac diseases, killed more than 39,000 people in the first three months of this year, Iraq has claimed.
Mubarak called for sanctions to be lifted as U.N. chief Kofi Annan met in Paris with Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who is touring Europe to rally support for Baghdad.
He said U.S. and British diplomats often blocked approval of contracts by a U.N. Security Council committee which oversees implementation of the "oil-for-food" deal.
The deal, which went into effect in December 1996, allows Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil to buy food, medicines and other humanitarian needs every six months to help offset the effect of the embargo on ordinary Iraqis.
Delays had led to chronic shortages of supplies including sutures, oxygen tents and intravenous kits, according to the Iraqi minister, who is a medical doctor.
"The delay of purchasing first aid and life-saving measures is caused by the representative of the United States, on the first hand, and on the second hand by the British government's representative on the committee...It is purely political," Mubarak said.
Iraq rejects suggestions that it has prolonged the suffering of its people by holding out against the oil-for-food deal.
The World Health Organization, which is hosting the annual meeting of its member governments, expressed alarm last year over what it called a collapse of the health system in Iraq.