- The number of babies born deformed and children suffering
leukaemia have soared because of the "deadly legacy" of depleted
uranium shells used by British and American forces in Iraq, human rights
campaigners claimed yesterday.
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- Releasing details of health problems and human rights
violations suffered by Iraqi children in the past year, they claim the
country's youngsters faced a worse existence today than they did under
Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
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- Depleted uranium was widely used by Allied forces to
penetrate Iraqi tank armour in the Gulf Wars of 1991 and again last year.
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- Opponents claim the dust it releases upon impact is rapidly
absorbed into the body, causing an upsurge of serious health problems inherited
by Iraqi children during the past 13 years from their parents.
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- Caroline Lucas, a Green Party Euro-MP who recently visited
Basra, said doctors there had told her that the number of children born
with severe deformities, such as shortened limbs or eye defects, had increased
sevenfold since 1991. In addition they were treating several new cases
of leukaemia every week - before 1991 the condition was very rare.
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- "Women in Basra are afraid to become pregnant because
there are so many deformed babies," she said. "We are leaving
a deadly legacy for generations to come."
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- She made the claims at the launch in London of a new
charity, Child Victims of War (CVW), to help Iraqi youngsters "innocently
suffering malnutrition, disease, disability and psychological trauma".
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- The amount of depleted uranium used by coalition forces
in the two Gulf Wars is not known, but some estimates suggest it was 300
tons in 1991 and five times as much last year.
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- CVW says the number of Iraqi babies born with serious
deformities has risen from 3.04 per thousand in 1991 to 22.19 per thousand
in 2001. Babies born with Downs Syndrome have increased nearly fivefold
and there had been a rash of cases of previously little-known eye problems.
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- The Ministry of Defence insists depleted uranium poses
a "minimal" risk to civilians. But, in a finding strongly disputed
by the MoD, researchers recently discovered radiation levels from destroyed
Iraqi tanks to be 2,500 times higher than normal and 20 times higher than
normal in the surrounding area.
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- Joanne Baker, the director of CVW, who has just returned
from Iraq, said children had also been maimed by cluster bombs, blamed
by Human Rights Watch for "hundreds of preventable civilian deaths".
-
- She said youngsters were also vulnerable both to coalition
forces and local militia resisting western forces.
-
- She said malnutrition had worsened since the Anglo-US
invasion and unpolluted water was in short supply while standards of hospital
care had fallen because of shortages of medical supplies.
-
- Those children who went to school - and a Christian Aid
survey showed two-thirds of poor youngsters did not - were "so malnourished
they can't concentrate".
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- Ms Baker claimed: "Every child in Iraq had a degree
of psychological trauma.
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- "I have been to Iraq under Saddam and sanctions
- most people know how bad things were - but what has happened this year
has plunged Iraq into a plight which is actually far, far worse,"
she said.
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- Ms Baker added: "I am not an apologist for Saddam
but I have spoken to people saying they suffered terribly and they are
in tears saying 'I wish he was back'.
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- "If it is worse than sanctions and Saddam then we
are really talking about a humanitarian catastrophe."
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- CVW has applied to the Charities Commission for charitable
status, and plans to open an office in Iraq to monitor abuses, counsel
those who have been detained, train human rights groups and provide medical
help to young victims of war.
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- VICTIM OF DEPLETED URANIUM?
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- At the age of seven, Fadel, from Basra in southern Iraq,
developed a devastating, and extremely rare, liver and kidney complaint
which caused her abdomen to swell dramatically. The condition - which has
only been seen in Iraq since 1991 - is thought to be caused by abnomally
high levels of toxic materials in her body.
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- She underwent agonising hospital treatment, which involved
injections to draw out the huge amounts of water that accumulated. Her
cries of pain were so loud they could be heard down the hospital corridor.
Fadel's father was serving in the Iraqi army during the first Gulf War
when she was conceived. Fadel is believed to have died shortly after this
photograph was taken.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=520733
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