Infant mortality in Iraq has increased tenfold since the United Nations imposed a trade embargo over Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq's health minister said Friday.
The minister, Umeed Mubarak, told a news conference that despite the oil-for-food deal with the world body that went into effect last December "not a single tablet" had reached the country despite some 550 contracts signed with foreign firms."The sufferings of Iraqis are even greater now than they were before," said Mubarak, attending the annual Assembly of the U.N.'s World Health Organization.
"We had been relying heavily on the oil-for-food memorandum, which we had hoped would be quickly implemented."
But approval of most of the contracts had been held up by the U.N. Sanctions Committee "largely on the insistence of the United States."
He said that before the U.N. sanctions were imposed seven years ago, the mortality rate for children under 5 years old was an average of 540 a month. "It has now reached 5,600 and is still growing."
Among those over 5 years old and adults, the rate of death from illness had climbed from 1,800 a month to over 8,000. Infant mortality was up from 24 for every 1,000 live births to 168.
Mubarak said the rise was due to the collapse of the health and sanitation system due to the embargo and the resurgence of diseases like hepatitis, polio and scabies, which had been eradicated in the 1980s.
Because of the shortage of medicines, equipment and power, only 30 percent of the hospital beds in the country - which once boasted a flourishing health service - were in use, and only the most urgent operations were performed.
People requiring hospital treatment for serious illness had to be brought to Baghdad by private car from all over the country because of a severe shortage of ambulances. "Many of them die on the way," Mubarak said.
Earlier this week, U.N. Under-Secretary General Yasushi Akashi told reporters in Baghdad at the end of a visit to Iraq that the country's humanitarian problems remained serious and that conditions in hospitals were deplorable.
Some medical supplies under the oil-for-food deal were expected to reach the country within the next two weeks, he said.
But Thursday, President Clinton said in a report to Congress that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remained "a threat to his people and the region" and that Washington would continue to resist any relaxation of sanctions.