Child Malnutrition Doubles in Iraq

Malnutrition among Iraq’s youngest children has nearly doubled since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, despite U.N. efforts to deliver food to the war-ravaged country, a Norwegian research group said Monday.

Since the March 2003 invasion, malnutrition among children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years has grown from 4% to 7.7%, said Jon Pedersen, deputy managing director of the Oslo-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science, which conducted the survey.

The United Nations Development Program and Iraq’s Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology also helped in the survey.

“It’s in the level of some African countries,” Pedersen said. “Of course, no child should be malnourished, but when we’re getting to levels of 7 to 8%, it’s a clear sign of concern.”

The latest study of 22,000 Iraqi homes in April and May suggests that about 400,000 children suffer from malnutrition. The results were confirmed by Iraqi interim government officials involved in the study, although the official figures are contained in a UNDP report, not yet released.

The U.S.-led coalition faces a strong insurgency, which has led to food-supply problems in and around troubled Sunni Muslim areas to the north and west of Baghdad.

In September, the U.N. World Food Program reported that about 6.5 million of Iraq’s 25 million people depended on food rations, a lifeline that has been increasingly threatened by the lack of security. This month, the U.N. agency said it completed distribution of 1.6 million tons of food but noted some shortages, although it didn’t say of what and where.

Pedersen said the malnutrition levels varied throughout Iraq, with the highest in the southwest, whereas the northern reaches, controlled by ethnic Kurds, had little malnutrition.