War tripled child deaths in Iraq

BOSTON (Reuter) - The Gulf war caused the infant and childhood mortality rates in Iraq to triple, and the increases were highest in the regions that tried to rebel against President Saddam Hussein, a new study has concluded. An international team of researchers from Harvard estimated that 46,900 children under five died in Iraq between January and August last year as an indirect result of the bombing, civilian uprisings and a UN economic embargo. The smallest increase came in the area that suffered the heaviest bombing: Baghdad, where the death rate rose by 70 per cent. In the neutral and northern territories, the refuge of displaced Kurds, the rate was 500 per cent higher.