For These Children of Iraq, Help Did Not Arrive
NOVANEWS
The unseen cost of three decades of war in Iraq
By Claudia Lefko
Common Dreams
Featured image: Dr. Hasanein Ghali takes temperature of a critically ill boy in Iraq. (Photo: Courtesy of the author)
In the end, help did not arrive.
In 2001, a 10-year old boy sketched this image of his sister, Faiza Amir, in her sick-bed at what is now Children’s Welfare Teaching Hospital (CWTH) in Medical City Baghdad and then, in large letters above the drawing, he made his plea, in English: “Help Cheldrin (sic) in Iraq.” Nearly all the drawings had written messages asking for help. Many asked for God’s help.
Muhanad Shawki directed his plea to a genie floating from a magic lantern: “I want to get out of the hospital,” he wrote on his perfectly rendered Disney-esque drawing of Aladdin....