The leukaemia ward at the Saddam Central Hospital for Children in Baghdad is a depressing sight. Many of the children on the ward have lost their hair because of chemotherapy treatment, others are emaciated and barely register the presence of the people around them. But most depressing of all, the doctors say that none of these children will survive. Every day we lose one patient, maybe more than one patient, just in this ward.
Aid agencies working in Iraq say it is the same story at other hospitals across the country.
UN blamed Leukaemia, which affects blood and bone marrow, was relatively rare in Iraq before 1990. In the West however, many leukaemia patients can be treated for the disease and survive. Not in Iraq. Dr Al Abdali blames the UN embargo, which will be 10 years old in August. It holds up supplies of the chemotherapy drugs, he said, meaning that the hospital does not have the right treatments at the right time.