Nov25
I’m often saddened by how little the conflict in Iraq shows up in the news these days. It was already fairly underreported, and then the election and financial crisis knocked it even farther off the media radar. The good news is that there actually is less violence in Iraq to report these days. The country has stabilized quite a bit from when I was a reporter there in 2004.
But it’s still a very dangerous place. And the daily UNICEF operations briefs I read almost always include some disheartening news from Iraq. (Two recent ones contained subheads Five killed, one injured north of Baghdad and Iraq violence leaves 14 dead.)
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| © UNICEF/NYHQ2007-2321/Michael Kamber |
| IRAQ: Children follow American soldiers as they patrol the streets of a neighborhood in the town of Falluja. The levels of violence in the city have fallen dramatically over the course of the year. But critical shortages of medicines and vaccines have left nearly one-third of children in remote areas without basic services. One in five Iraqi children has stunted growth, 1 in 13 is underweight, half are missing routine vaccinations and 1 in 5 girls is not in school. |
I sometimes think that one of the reasons we Americans don’t want to know too much about the situation in Iraq is that it’s just so complicated. There are a lot of different combative groups, and it can feel as though it’s sometimes hard to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. But for UNICEF, it’s simple: kids are always the good guys.
