Some 8,000 Iraqis died in June because of the embargo

Iraq announced on Thursday that some 8,000 citizens including 5,410 children died during June due to the UN embargo which has been imposed on the country since 1990.

A statement released by the Iraqi Health Ministry said the children who died were suffering from diarrhoea, breathing and lung diseases and malnutrition, while the elderly were suffering from heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

In 1997, UNICEF announced that one quarter of Iraqi children under the age of five are suffering malnutrition, a matter which will affect their physical and mental growth in the long run.

Iraq, meanwhile, stressed on Thursday that Washington and London are obstructing contracts to get spare parts related to the communications sector in order to replace those destroyed during the Gulf War in 1991.

Iraqi Transport and Communications Minister Ahmad Murtada Ahmad said that the representatives of the US and Britain at the UN sanctions committee, are responsible for obstructing ratification of Iraq's contracts in the area of communications under false and groundless pretexts.

Murtada added that the US and British representatives at the UN sanctions committee refused Iraqi contracts for the sector of communications and their refusal was due to doubts expressed on the possibility of dual military and civilian use of telecommunications.

He indicated that the UN sent several technical committees to Iraq with the objective of evaluating the current conditions of communications, noting that the last committee was sent in August 1998 and, then, approved Iraq's needs for a new telecommunications network, because its network in this sector was destroyed in 1991.