Iraq's new crisis: Moms, dads abandoning kids

Iraq's new crisis: Moms, dads abandoning kids

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The head of Iraq's main humanitarian group said an 18-year-old approached him with a baby suffering from leukemia. The desperate mother said she'd do "anything" for treatment for her child -- and then offered herself up for sex.

Said Ismail Hakki breaks down in tears as he recalls that story. Leukemia can be treatable to a degree in much of the world, but not in Iraq. The baby died two months later.

"It shook me like hell," said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent. "All my life I've been a surgeon. I've seen blood; I've seen death. That never shook me -- none whatsoever. But when I see the suffering of those people, that really shook me."

The plight of Iraq's children is nearing epidemic proportions, he said, with mothers and fathers abandoning their children "because they're becoming a liability." The parents don't do it out of convenience, they do it out of desperation.

<...>

Hakki says the spike in numbers of abandoned children is especially alarming, the result of sectarian violence and drastic socio-economic problems. The majority of parents in Iraq, he says, leave their children with a single relative who often has about 20 to 30 children to look after. Some parents just leave their kids altogether.

more

"Some day people are going to look back at this time and day and say, 'Thank God there was a generation that did not lose faith ... because the Middle East is a place free of suiciders,'" Bush said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed two people and wounded two others in the Shi'ite district of Kadhimiya in northern Baghdad, police sources said.

<...>

BALAD RUZ - Three children were killed and five others, including three women, were wounded when three mortar bombs landed in the town of Balad Ruz, 50 km (30 miles) east of Baquba, police said.

<...>

BAGHDAD - Four bodies were found in different districts of Baghdad on Friday, police said.

<...>

NEAR BAQUBA - A bomb planted in a field killed one child and wounded six family members, including four other children, south of Baquba, police said.

more