Feb
Iraq’s children pay price of war
PHOTO: Christiaan Briggs, flickr creative commons.
Ahmad is an Iraqi kid whose leg got blown off in a car bomb. He has stunning green eyes contrasted by jet black hair and olive skin. He’s featured in Richard Engel’s video on Iraqi children paying the price of war on Engel’s MSNBC.com Iraq blog.
Why Engel’s reports are not more prominently featured on NBC is baffling. His coverage of the Iraq war has been steady and compelling from the beginning and he is unwavering in his determination to get the human story told.
According to a new study, many Iraqi children are getting treated at U.S. military hospitals. These must be the lucky ones. Ahmad was treated at a dirty hospital with poor sanitation and the result was shoddy medical care that has left him with infections and some bad scarring. His mother can’t afford to get him a prosthetic limb, so he has to drag himself around or be carried by his older brother.
Air Force Maj. David Norton, who runs the intensive care unit in Balad, Iraq said in an e-mail, “With respect to children in particular, we see far too many. Iraqi children, through no fault of their own, are forced to grow up quickly and are often times the unfortunate victims of an adult world.”
Besides the injured ones, many kids have left school to support their families. Some of them play in garbage dumps. Others play soccer in bomb sites.
These kids, like Ahmad, have so much potential. Children are resillient creatures and can recover, but they need a helping hand. And they also need to be kids. Iraq’s young people could use some reassurance from the world that some day, they’ll be able to get back to being young and having fun. Soon.
