BAGHDAD, 25 January 2005 — The weak are always hardest hit, and children in Iraq are no exception. Reham is 10, Shirwan five and Nadine three. Their daily life is conditioned by the ongoing terror more than by anything else. Reham saw his first bomb four months ago as she was on her way to school.
The explosion went off very near the school in the Qahera part of the city, causing a blaze and generating clouds of smoke. “I was so shocked,” the small and delicate girl says. “I often dream about it at night,” she says. Since the explosion, Reham has been frightened of going to school. Shirwan’s creche opened its doors again only recently after being closed for weeks. A bomb found on the playground caused panic among parents and staff alike. The five-year-old boy lives in Mansur in the west of Baghdad, and his school is very near the Green Zone, where the Iraqi interim government and the huge US Embassy are. These are the main targets of the Iraqi insurgency.
Shirwan wets his bed regularly at night, although before the war he had for two years been able to sleep without doing so. Nadine is still unable to give expression to her fears. At three she appears to have difficulty learning to talk, even though her family spares no effort to teach her. “But she simply won’t say anything,” her mother says.
Two months ago, masked and armed men burst into the family’s living room, shooting about them and abducting her father. The man has disappeared without trace. “These are typical signs of psychological trauma,” says Anders Svensson in reference to the symptoms shown by the children.
The Swedish psychologist works for one of the very few nongovernmental organizations still operating in Iraq. Most have left as a result of the extreme danger to their staff, both from terror attacks and from abduction. Diakonia, a Swedish church welfare organization has been working with traumatized children in Iraq since 1994. Svensson, 28, was motivated to take up his career because he is interested in what makes people tick. “In Iraq we can see quite clearly that perpetual stress and long-term worry lead to disrupted sleep, signs of nervousness and stomach problems. Children are particularly at risk,” he says.
Svensson and his 120 Iraqi co-workers use play therapy and frequent consultation with the families involved to try to make life more bearable for the few children in his care and to limit the psychological damage they have suffered. “If this reign of terror continues, however, we will end up with a country full of psychopaths,” Anders predicts, on the basis of his training and experience.
The United Nations children’s organization (UNICEF) has also expressed concern in a study published in December last year. It said that around 8 percent of all children under the age of five were extremely malnourished. Lack of protein and chronic diarrhea were among the most common symptoms, the latter caused largely by the poor quality of the drinking water and the general lack of hygiene. UNICEF did not, however, focus on the psychological aspects of the unrest in Iraq. The Iraqi Health Ministry strongly disputes the UNICEF figures, saying they have no basis in fact. According to spokesman Suhaib Sadik, the number of malnourished children has fallen since the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled. At the very least, the situation was no worse than under the old regime, Sadik told DPA. UNICEF maintained in its report that the number of malnourished children had doubled over the past two years, although it admitted that it was extremely difficult to conduct investigations on the ground as a result of the security situation.
The Iraqi insurgency has targeted humanitarian organizations with terrorist attacks. Following the massive bomb at UN headquarters in Baghdad at the end of August 2003, the world body has drastically cut back its staff in Iraq and is now operating largely from outside the country.
