BBC NEWS
              Friday, 1 December, 2000, 14:33 GMT
              Eyewitness: Bitter legacy of sanctions

              These mothers say sanctions killed their children
              By Ben Brown in Baghdad

              Saddam Hussein brought sanctions upon his
              country - but it is not him who is suffering.
              Instead, the Iraqi people are paying the price
              from the cradle to the grave.

              In Iraq's hospitals, doctors say there are
              frequent power cuts and only rudimentary
              equipment because of sanctions.

              Many babies are severely malnourished and of
              every 1,000 babies born, 108 will die before
              their first birthday.

              Paediatrician Dr
              Abdullah Hamzawi
              showed me one baby in
              his run-down ward.
              "She weighs only 40%
              of the weight she is
              supposed to be," he
              said.

              "Such babies carry the
              risk of 50% mortality.
              Fifty per cent she may
              die. I just ask why
              should this happen," he
              adds.

              Back in time

              Ten years after sanctions were first imposed,
              Iraq is being driven further and further back in
              time. This oil-rich nation is becoming more and
              more under-developed

              Even for babies lucky
              enough to leave
              hospital, the prospects
              are a life of poverty
              and misery.

              In Iraq, education used
              to be a priority, but
              under sanctions and
              Saddam, it comes
              second to survival.

              One 14-year-old boy I
              met sells cigarettes to
              support his family. Like
              about half of Iraq's children, he's dropped out
              of school.

              "My father is old, my mother can't work and my
              brother is a conscript. I have to sell cigarettes
              to keep my family alive," he said.

              If you do make it through school and on to
              university, you might wonder whether it's
              worth it. Forget the internet, books from the
              1970s and 80s may be your latest works of
              reference.

              Brain drain

              Although there is a brain drain from Iraq, some
              students are staying.

              "Here education is free,
              so I think it's my turn
              to pay back, says one
              young woman. "I'd stay
              here and I'd serve my
              country."

              But in Iraq's blockaded
              economy, teachers and
              civil servants, for
              example, earn around
              50p a week. Out on
              the streets, many
              choose to sell their
              books to supplement their income.

              What is the point of graduating, some feel, if
              you end up at an auction house, selling off
              your most treasured possessions just to make
              ends meet?

              Recently, the United Nations have eased their
              blockade and would lift it entirely if Saddam
              Hussein would comply with their demands.

              But for now, those with nothing left to sell
              have one last choice - to beg.

              A decade on, this is still the agony of
              sanctions, from birth until death.