BAGHDAD, March 16 (Reuters) - Ahmed Ziad is not celebrating the Moslem feast
of Eid al-Adha in the usual way this year. Like many ordinary Iraqis, he
cannot afford to.
Instead he headed for the mosque at dawn on Thursday, the first day of the
feast, to remember his dead son and pray for an end to U.N. sanctions that
have impoverished many Iraqis since they were imposed 10 years ago.
"It's not easy to celebrate the occasion while the sanctions are imposed on
us. We cannot afford to buy our necessities under these difficult
circumstances," said 45-year-old Ziad, as he left the mosque with his son.
"We pray so that God have mercy on us and on my deceased son," he said of
the child he lost to disease two years ago.
His prayers for an end to the trade embargo against Iraq were repeated in
mosques around Iraq.
"We ask God almighty to lift sanctions on our dear country so that Iraqis
can enjoy the wealth God has bestowed upon them," said a preacher in a
mosque in downtown Baghdad at dawn prayers.
Thousands of Moslems gathered at mosques to pray and to pay zakat, the
voluntary tax that Moslems pay for the poor.
But many ordinary Iraqis struggled to find enough cash to buy sheep and cows
to slaughter on the occasion of Eid.
Khawla, who took her three children to an amusement park, found she could
not afford to buy them tickets for all the games they wanted to play.
"I want to see my children happy but my pocket cannot meet their needs," she
said.
Fatima, 60, was also in no mood for celebration as she rushed to catch a
taxi to take her and her daughter to the cemetery where her husband is
buried.
"My husband died last year after fighting cancer for two months," Fatima
said, explaining that he died while waiting his turn for chemotherapy in the
only Iraqi hospital able to treat cancer cases.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was reported on Monday to be preparing
recommendations to relax the embargo to ensure vital medicines reach Iraq's
crumbling healthcare system.
Under the sanctions imposed in 1990, oil-rich Iraq has been allowed since
1996 to sell oil under U.N. supervision with proceeds from the sales used to
buy food and medicines.
Health officials said this month the number of cancer cases had soared since
the Gulf war. They blamed radioactivity from munitions used by British and
U.S. forces as part of the multinational force which forced Iraqi troops out
of Kuwait.
Iraq says 11,236 Iraqis, most of them children, died last month as a result
of sanctions in the country of 22 million people. An Iraqi Health ministry
report issued earlier this year said more than 1.25 million people have died
since 1990.