The Sheffield delegation has returned from Iraq. 14 people went with our delegation. Eight people returned after 3 days in Baghdad with a Greek delegation that flew from, and back to, Athens. The remaining six people stayed for 2 weeks visiting the cities of Baghdad, Mosul and Basra.
The Sheffield Iraq Concert on Friday 7th July was a great success. Excellent food preceeded a fine eclectic international musical line up. Almost £400 was raised towards the delegation.
The first meeting for those interested in participating in the Sheffield Delegation to Iraq took place last Saturday, and was attended by ten people. several other sent apologies. It was a very successful meeting; a full report of what was discussed and decided will follow shortly.
Meetings are open to everyone, and fall on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month.
to prioritise surgical gloves, sterile dressings and pain-killers.
The delegation meeting also decided to take the medical aid campaign to the streets.
The first occasion will be Saturday 10 June, 12.00 – 2.00, when we will set up a stall outside Boots at the bottom of Fargate.
The idea is to hand people leaflets asking them to go into Boots and buy some paracetamol etc., and deposit it in a basket on their way out. We would like to do this on at least a fortnightly basis until mid-July, so please contact us to put your name down for any forthcoming Saturday.
Women Against War organise benefit for the Sheffield Delegation for women only, at the Broomspring Centre, Friday 23 June, 7.30 til late.
"To raise money to support links between women in Sheffield and women in Iraq"
Contact Women Against War - 0114 233 6874 - for more info, or Sheffield Women's Cultural Club - 2491630
...to mark the tenth anniversary of sanctions on Iraq on August 6th.
For the past two years, Voices in the Wilderness has held a fast and vigil opposite Downing Street over several days around August 6, calling for an immediate lifting of the economic sanctions.
They will be holding a vigil again this year, but are also planning to organise what they hope will be a mass act of nonviolent civil disobedience in central London on Monday August 7, to demonstrate the opposition of ordinary people to this murderous policy.
Preparation for the event is taking place 10.30 to 4pm in Room A144 in the LSE, main entrance, Houghton Street, London WC1, near Holborn tube - 16th July.
Childhood mortality in south/central Iraq has doubled since the Gulf War and the introduction of UN sanctions, according to research published in this week's issue of THE LANCET.
The study, by Mohamed Ali from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and Iqbal Shah from the WHO, Geneva, Switzerland, compared childhood mortality between two regions of Iraq. In 1999 UNICEF, in cooperation with the government of Iraq and the local authorities in the "autonomous" (northern Kurdish) region, did two surveys to provide regionally representative, and reliable estimates of child mortality and maternal mortality. In a cross-sectional household survey in the south/centre of Iraq in February and March, 1999, more than 23,000 married women aged between 15 and 49 years were interviewed by trained interviewers with a structured questionnaire. A similar survey was done among 14,000 married women in the autonomous region in April and May.
In the south/centre, infant and under-5 mortality increased during the 10 years before the survey - which roughly corresponds to the period following the Gulf conflict and the start of the United Nations sanctions. Infant mortality rose from 47 per 1000 live births during 1984-89 to 108 per 1000 in 1994-99, and under-5 mortality rose from 56 to 131 per 1000 live births. In the autonomous region during the same period, infant mortality declined from 64 to 59 per 1000 and under-5 mortality fell from 80 to 72 per 1000. Childhood mortality was higher among children born in rural areas, children born to women with no education, and in boys; these differentials were broadly similar in the two regions.
The investigators conclude that childhood mortality clearly increased after the Gulf conflict and under UN sanctions in the south/centre of Iraq, but in the autonomous region (since the start of the Oil-for-Food Programme), childhood mortality has begun to decline.
Better food and resource allocation to the autonomous region contributed to the continued gains in lower mortality, whereas the situation in the south/centre deteriorated for a number of reasons, including lack of maintenance of hospitals and health clinics; shortages of water and power supplies - only half of urban and a third of rural inhabitants of the south/central region have access to safe drinking water, compared to 90% and 70% respectively before the introduction of sanctions.
Other factors include the increase of communicable waterborne diseases and malaria; and the increase in maternal malnutrition leading to an increase in the proportion of low-birth-weight babies (from 4% to 25%).
An accompanying LANCET editorial (p 1837) comments that the current medical situation in Iraq has been caused by a wide range of factors, and that food shortages, reduced incomes, poor electricity and water supplies, drug and medical equipment shortages, the intellectual isolation, and the emigration of Iraqi professionals cannot be singled out. It concludes that:
the courageous policy is to suspend (not abandon) sanctions lest upcoming generations of Iraqis, out of resentment, suffering, and isolation, grow up to be as aggressive as their current leader.
Doctor and writer Peter Kandela has recently visited Iraq. Writing in the news section in this week's issue of THE LANCET (p 1893), he describes what he calls:
'the tragedy of Iraq. A once prosperous country, its doctors, engineers and teachers are leaving. Children who should be at school are scouring rubbish heaps and keeping cool in cesspits, and when they get ill there will be no treatment for them. These are the next generation and who will blame those who survive to adulthood, if they react with bitterness and fury against those they deem responsible'.
Contact: Dr Mohamed M Ali,
Department of Epidemiology & Population Health,
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,
49-51 Bedford Square,
LONDON WCIB 3DP, UK;
T) +44 (0)20 7299 4614; F) +44 (0)20 7299 4637;
E) Mohamed.Ali@lshtm.ac.uk iraq sanctions