Iraq conflict wreaks havoc on kids

GENEVA — Fighting in Iraq is "wreaking havoc" on the country's children, nearly doubling malnutrition rates since the start of the war and all but preventing relief groups from working in the country, the U.N. children's agency said Tuesday.

In a sign of the difficulties faced by humanitarian efforts, the first independent aid convoy to enter the Iraqi city of Fallujah after two weeks of fighting had to turn back before delivering any aid because of security fears, the international Red Cross said.

The Red Crescent convoy of ambulances and three trucks carrying blankets, water and first-aid kits managed to enter the city on Monday and saw a few civilians before it had to turn back, said Ahmed Rawi, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Marines said the team was briefed on the aid situation in the city and visited a relief site but was advised by military officials not to distribute aid.

"They did not deliver any assistance," Rawi said, adding that he was waiting for the convoy's report on the security situation. "We want to see what they saw inside. We want to see their evaluation of the conditions."

The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, said there was little it could do to ease the plight of children across Iraq because the violence prevents relief agencies from conducting most operations in the country.

"Humanitarian work in Iraq has been crippled by the fact that international aid agencies, including the U.N., have been directly targeted and forced to conduct their humanitarian operations largely from neighboring countries," UNICEF said in a statement.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children are suffering from diarrhea and nutrition deficiencies, UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said.

A survey Monday by the Norway-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science said that since the March 2003 invasion, malnutrition among children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old has grown to 7.7 percent from 4 percent.

Years of sanctions, tyranny and war have crippled the country, and even before the latest conflict one in every eight Iraqi children died before the age of 5, Bellamy said.

"War is waged by adults, but it is the children who suffer the most," Bellamy said. "This protracted fighting and instability is wreaking havoc on Iraqi children."

Young children are the most vulnerable to malnutrition, which is exacerbated by a lack of clean water and adequate sanitation, she said.