Child Hunger in Iraq Doubled
UK - BBC News
Wednesday, 30 March, 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4395525.stm
Increasing numbers of children in Iraq do not have enough food to eat and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished, a UN report says. It says that malnutrition rates in Iraqi children under five have almost doubled since the US-led invasion -- from 4% before the war to nearly 8% by the end of 2004.
Jean Ziegler, a UN specialist on hunger who prepared the report, blamed the worsening situation in Iraq on the war led by coalition forces.
The information about Iraq was part of a report on world hunger prepared for the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Ziegler was addressing a meeting of the 53-nation commission, the top UN rights watchdog, which is halfway through its annual six-week session.
Ziegler said that governments must recognise their extra-territorial obligations towards the right to food and should not do anything that might undermine access to it of people living outside their borders, it says. Washington, which sent a large delegation to the Human Rights Commission, declined to respond to the charges, says the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva.
Mr Ziegler also said he was shocked by the fact that hunger is actually increasing worldwide. He was concerned about the lack of food in North Korea, where there are reports that UN food aid is not being distributed fairly. In Darfur, the continuing conflict has prevented people from planting vital crops, he said.
Some 17,000 children die every day from hunger-related diseases -- more than 6 million each year -- the report claims, calling the situation a scandal in a world that is richer than ever before. "This silent daily massacre by hunger is a form of murder and is entirely preventable," Mr Ziegler said. "It must be battled and eliminated."
