FEATURE - Iraq's children bear brunt of unexploded munitions
Date: 10-Jun-03
Country: UK
Author: Ruth Gidley
U.S. and British coalition officials admit they used cluster bombs in Iraq, in spite of pleas from advocacy groups to avoid using them in civilian areas where inquisitive children and men scavenging for scrap metal have paid a high price.
Sean Sutton of the British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) told Reuters: "There's going to be a lot of reminders around for other children not to play with the stuff. I can't imagine there's going to be a classroom in the north without scarred children in it. It's so widespread."
Many deaths and injuries are not registered, so it is difficult to estimate casualties, but Sutton said MAG reported 320 injuries in northern Iraq in the first month after April 9.
He said the real figure was probably much higher, since deaths were recorded only if they occurred in hospital, or if MAG gathered data by speaking to victims in hospital and found out from relatives or doctors that other people had been killed in the same accident.
"Averaging all of that out, it was over 500 injuries from April 10 to the end of April, and 80 deaths that we knew of," Sutton said.
In northern Iraq, some explosives date from the war between Iran and Iraq from 1980 to 1988, military action by Saddam Hussein's government against the predominantly Kurdish population and the first Gulf war in 1991.
Richard Lloyd, director of the British non-government agency Landmine Action, told Reuters: "The conflict this year has made what we knew was a serious problem much worse."
The most dangerous areas for landmines are on the former front line between the Kurdish-controlled north and government-held areas, and the border with Iran.
"Where there were Iraqi positions, at the moment we must assume unless proven otherwise that they were protected with minefields, since it was standard procedure," Sutton said.
CLUSTER BOMBS
There is a danger throughout the country from abandoned Iraqi stockpiles and the debris of cluster bombs and explosives used by U.S. and British forces.
Lloyd said there were reports of unexploded ordnance in Najaf, Nassiriyah and Hillah in the south of the country, as well as Baghdad and Basra, Iraq's second largest city.
British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said on May 29 that British forces had used cluster bombs in built-up areas around Basra. NGOs said there were a large number of strikes around Kirkuk and Mosul.
The use of cluster bombs is controversial because they often fail to explode at the moment of impact and can cause serious injuries if picked up.
The British Defence Ministry says the cluster bombs used by its army have a failure rate of about two percent. The models used by Britain's Royal Air Force and the U.S. army have a failure rate of about 10 percent.
"Before the conflict, we tried to persuade the United States and United Kingdom to at least restrict their use, based on what we've seen in other recent conflicts where it's caused major humanitarian problems," Lloyd said.
"Both the U.S. and the U.K. have used them in massive numbers."
Ingram told BBC radio: "Cluster bombs are not illegal. They are effective weapons.
"There were troops, there was equipment in and around built-up areas, therefore the bombs were used accordingly to take out the threat to our troops."
Sutton said the biggest problem was stockpiles of munitions left behind by the Iraqi army.
"Kids were taking out the boosters from shells and mortars which is like cordite - gunpowder - and making big flashes out of it."
EDUCATING COMMUNITIES
The strategy of organisations such as MAG is to work through through schools and religious leaders to educate communities about the dangers of explosives, mark dangerous areas and fence them off, and then remove or destroy dangerous items.
Sutton said he was photographing children picking flowers and playing next to a minefield when he was approached by a man who told him the family had returned to their village two weeks be
