Some 14,000 Iraqi children died in December because of UN sanctions

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that more than 14,000 Iraqi children died in December, 1999 because of the siege. Thereby the number of victims of the UN embargo increased to 1.2 million since the imposition of UN sanctions on this country in August, 1990.

In comparison to the number of deaths in November, 1999 which reached 10,295, to number of deaths in December recorded a great increase as a result of the continued embargo.

In a statement the Iraqi ministry added that increase in the number of deaths was because of diseases such as diarrhea, lung diseases, malnutrition, cancer, diabetes, high blood-pressure, heart disease and lack of medicines.

For its part, the Iraqi weekly al-Zouraí said that more than 9,000 Iraqis were killed or wounded in bomb explosions dropped by the allies' planes against Iraq during the military operations in the Gulf War nine years ago.

The paper quoted Lt. Gen. Qasem Muhammad al-Shummari, the director general of the Iraqi civil defense, as saying that these bombs claimed the lives of 2,440 civilians and wounded another 7,032 during January and February 1991.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, David Keed, said that inspectors from the agency are preparing to leave Amman today on an inspection mission in Iraq for one week.

Keed told the AFP that the inspectors are intending to start their work tomorrow (Saturday) and to finish it by the end of the week if matters proceed without problems He stressed that the inspection operation has no connection to the strong control imposed on Iraq by the UN security council since the Gulf War.