New collective funeral for Iraqi children

A collective funeral on Monday went through Baghdad's streets for 27 Iraqi infants who died as a result of bad health conditions arising from the sanctions imposed on Iraq for eight years.

The funeral of the infants, aged between three and twenty days, stopped in front of the headquarters of the UNDP in protest of the continued embargo. Organizers of the funeral carried banners saying: "Under what law do Iraqi children die?" They chanted anti-US slogans.

An earlier collective funeral was held for 35 Iraqi children who also died as a result of medicine shortages. That funeral stopped in front of the headquarters of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry when UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler was inside.

Statistics of the Iraqi Health Ministry indicate that Iraqi children's mortality rates have increased 16 times during the last nine years because of the embargo. A report issued by the ministry said that 6,495 children died last July compared to 387 children who died in July 1989.