Most Kids Would Think This Was Cool

– and snow for the 1st time in a hundred years should bring a smile to a kids face, but the homeless, hungry, and the sick children in Iraq probably didn’t appreciate it much.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has painted a dramatic picture of the situation of children in Iraq and warned that increased assistance is needed to improve their dire situation.

According to UNICEF, an estimated two million children suffer from poor nutrition, disease, and interrupted education. One child dies every five minutes because of the war, and many more are left with severe injuries.

Of the estimated four million Iraqis who have been internally displaced or who have left the country, one and a half million are children. For the most part, those remaining don’t have access to basic health care, education, shelter, potable water, and sanitation.

Sick or injured children, who could otherwise be treated by simple means, are left to die in the hundreds because they don’t have access to basic medicines or other resources.

[.....]

According to UN Security Council Resolution 1483, both the United States and Great Britain are recognized as Iraq’s occupying powers and as such are bound by The Hague and Geneva Conventions that demand that they be responsible not only for maintaining order, but also for responding to the medical needs of the population.

The number of Iraqi children who are born underweight or suffer from malnutrition continues to rise and is now higher than before the U.S.-led invasion, according to a report by OXFAM and 80 other aid agencies.

Iraqi children’s malnutrition rates are on a par with Burundi, a central African country torn by a brutal civil war, and higher than Uganda and Bolivia. Almost a third of the population, 8 million people, needs emergency aid, and more than four million Iraqis depend on food assistance.

According to a local non-governmental organization, Keeping the Children Alive (KCA), over 700 children have been abandoned by their parents in Baghdad alone since January 2006. Many among them end up living on the streets, part of the 1.6 million children under the age of 12 who have become homeless in Iraq, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

(emphasis mine)

In the time it took you to read this post, look at the associated image of a happy Iraqi couple playing in the snow being promoted by AFP, and click on the links I provided just to make sure I wasn’t lying to you, there is a very good chance that at least one Iraqi child froze and died amid the “progress” being touted by The Decider and his followers.