Child mortality in Iraq appalling

A new report from a group called Save the Children shows that the mortality rate in Iraq has increased faster than any other country since 1990:

One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence beforereaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Savethe Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the leastprogress toward improving child survival rates.

Iraq's mortalityrate has soared by 150 percent since 1990.

And it gets even worse:

Some 122,000 Iraqi children died in 2005 before reaching their fifthbirthday. More than half of these deaths were among newborn babies inthe first month of life.

The health of newborns is just one of the many humanitarian concerns in the post-Saddam era.  According to the Washington Times this morning, the more than 4 million displaced Iraqis make up the most significant refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948.  Of the 900,000 Iraqis that leave their country every six months, only 68 have been admitted to the United States.

Comments

[Tony]

don't the purple fingers make up for that?