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Official Statement

UNICEF concerned about Iraqi children

- Statement Attributable to UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy -

AMMAN / NEW YORK, 6 April 2003 - With a large-scale assault on Baghdad now underway I want to remind all parties to the conflict of their legal and moral obligation to protect the lives of civilians, especially children.

Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, half of them under the age of 18. Over the past two and a half weeks there have been increasing reports of civilian casualties, with many graphic accounts of children killed, injured, and traumatized.

Our extensive experience working with children in conflict has taught us that in addition to the immediate effects, there are other profound and debilitating consequences that last for years to come. The scars of war do not easily fade. Physical and psychological trauma, fear, and the loss of loved ones continue to plague the lives of those who have endured such horrors.

Take for example, the three boys between the ages of five and six who were severely maimed this week when playing with a landmine at Garagow, near Dohuk. One boy had both his hands blown off, another may lose an eye. The lives of these children and their families will never be the same.

However sophisticated the methods of waging war, the end results are as bloody and tragic as they have been throughout the centuries. But there is at least one thing that has changed: increasingly, women and children are the principal victims.

UNICEF is particularly concerned about reports in the last few days of the use of cluster bombs in densely populated urban areas. These cruel and clumsy weapons are already reported to have claimed the lives of Iraqi children and their use must end.

The taking of a child's life is never an acceptable cost of war.

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For further information please contact us:.

Wivina Belmonte, UNICEF Amman: wbelmonte@unicef.org,
(962) 79 504 2058
Gordon Weiss, UNICEF Media, New York: (1-212) 326-7426
Jo Bailey, UNICEF Media, New York, jbailey@unicef.org
(1-212) 326-7412

For interviews in the region, write or call directly to the UNICEF NewsDesk in Amman:

(962-79) 50422058
iraqichild@unicef.org