What's happening to the orphans in Iraq?

With who knows how many men women and children murdered in Iraq, there must surely be many orphans. Who is caring for them? Does anyone know?

Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare
Exclusive: U.S. And Iraqi Troops Discover And Rescue Orphan Boys Left Starving, Chained To Beds
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/18/eveningnews/main2946007.shtml


"They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building."

Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found more emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the 24 boys.

"I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face," Staff Sgt. Michael Beale said.

"The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste — feces — and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids," Lt. Stephen Duperre said

No words.

it is heartbreaking.

"The soldiers found kitchen shelves packed with food in the stock room. Instead of giving it to the boys, the soldiers believe it was being sold to local markets."

This really seems to be a war on children.

Also, how horribly ironic is it that US Soldiers were the ones to rescue the boys? Create an orphan/save an orphan.

The room is mostly clean, the cribs are next to the children, empty.... It looks like the kids were put on the floor just for the picture. I am not saying they are not badly neglected, but rather that my BS meter is going off. I think someone tried to make an already horrible situation look worse and ended up making it look staged.

Just my humble opinion.

Hopefully someday the hostilities will stop, fanatics won't be in power and we can send some of our charities over to help these poor kids.

Another point should be that not all cultures value less then perfect children. We've seen it in other place and in our own history. Unfortunately until the country is stable and they have some sort of progressive leadership (yes I know, fat chance)it probably will not change.

Here are a couple of references I found:


"Iraqi orphans are increasing everyday because of the constant wars that the country has been going through," Habib explained, citing an estimated three to four million Iraqi orphans according to figures released by the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation.

Highlighting the importance of small loans to poor people, particularly those who lost their breadwinners, Habib said that only 469 orphans are currently sponsored by the government.

Meanwhile, Abir al-Jabli, a head of department in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, said that sponsoring orphans should not only be the concern of the government. According to al-Jabli, those children would be better taken care of by their relatives.

http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/25049

Iraq's 5 Million Orphans Need Care
Monday, December 17, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com


Iraq's anti-corruption board revealed on Saturday that there were five million Iraqi orphans as reported by official government statistics, urging the government, parliament, and NGOs to be in constant contact with Iraq's parentless children. "The government should set up an institutional or legislative program to help the Iraqi orphans. Iraqi is an oil-rich country and it is not acceptable that its orphans remain groaning in this tragedy," the anti-corruption board chief, Moussa Faraj, said during a conference in Baghdad dedicated to orphans in Iraq. "The board on its own cannot meet the Iraqi orphans' needs, but there should be an organization or even a ministry to provide care for orphans," he said. The Iraqi parliament's women & family committee had proposed a draft law to set up a fund for the orphans. During the conference, Wijdan Salem Mikhail, the Iraqi minister of human rights, said in a speech that the phenomenon "is one of the most passive things that grew immensely during the past few years due to destructive wars and unbridled violence in the country to unprecedented heights. These factors have logically caused the number of widows and orphans to greatly increase," she said. -Uruknet

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=52703

:nuke: