Starved Orphans In Iraqi Orphanage Reduce U.S. Troops To Tears [View All]

Just more mental anguish for our soldiers. This story will disgust you. Those poor, poor little children.

I'm keeping this story on hand the next time some neocon neonazi decides to pull some of the "but they never report the GOOD over there!" tripe.

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http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/starved-orphans-reduce-troops-to-tears/2007/06/20/1182019197710.html

Baghdad
June 21, 2007

MORE than 20 boys have been found, starved and naked, at a government-run orphanage for special needs children in Iraq.

The harrowing scene at the Baghdad facility reduced some of the US and Iraqi soldiers who found the children to tears.

The 24 boys were found naked and lying on concrete floors, covered in their own excrement, flies and sores. Some were near death.

"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," US Army Staff Sergeant Michael Beale told CBS News last week.

Lieutenant Stephen Duperre said the scene was devastating.

"The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste, faeces, and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids," he said.

Staff Sergeant Mitchell Gibson said soldiers at first thought the boys were dead when they happened, at random, to peek over a wall into the orphanage.

"They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try to get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down," he told CBS.

The soldiers believe the boys had been held at the facility in appalling conditions for more than a month.

That was despite the fact that the orphanage was staffed and well stocked with food and even new clothes for the children.

AAP