1.8 m Iraqis died since '90 as result of Gulf War, UN sanctions

BAGHDAD, Jan 17: More than 1.8 million Iraqis have died since 1990 as a result of the Gulf War and UN sanctions, Iraqi Health Minister Umid Medhat Mubarak said on Saturday, reports AFP.

In all 1,873,464 Iraqis have died as result of a combination of the 1991 Gulf War, subsequent allied military action and the eight and a half year old UN embargo, Mubarak told the official news agency INA.

The dead included 428,920 children under the age of five, he said in a breakdown issued to mark the eighth anniversary of the start of the Gulf War.

He accused the United States and Britain of making the situation worse by holding up the approval of contracts for food and medicine under the UN oil-for-food programmes.

Iraq has taken delivery of only 620 million dollars worth of medicines since the programme was launched in 1996, he said.

"This figure is too low," he said, adding that Iraq had only received five per cent of the contracts from the third round of the programme which ended eight months ago.

The oil-for-food programme allows Iraq to export 5.2 billion dollars worth of oil every six months to pay for basic imports.

But at current depressed prices, the country is struggling to export three billion dollars worth.

Infant mortality rate has almost quadrupled since 1990, Mubarak said, rising from 24 per thousand in 1990 to a current level of 98 per thousand.

Among children over five years old, the monthly death rate has increased to 8,600 from its 1990 level of 1,600.

Mubarak blamed lack of medicines and malnutrition for the reappearance of diseases such as malaria and typhoid, and said the chances of falling ill had tripled.