People are packed on both sides of the road and in the median selling or attempting to sell their possessions of all sorts in a desperate attempt to get some money to survive. The heat is an oppressive 120-plus degrees as if to add coals on an already suffering humanity. The eyes of the people have a pallor of hopelessness and pain. At Al Qadissiya Hospital we encounter pervasive cases of quashiorker and nutritional marasmus, diseases of severe protein deficiency. Dr. Mudhar Kannuna tells me that he has accepted his fate, he is waiting to die.
Beds have no linens, cross-infections are common.
My heart cringes as I hear of families who give their children away because they cannot afford to feed them. I begin to realise that I am in a country where security, no, survival is measured one day at a time. In one family we hear about, the father makes 5-6000 ID per month working for the army. His young son sells cigarettes on a street corner all day and brings home 50,000 ID per month. It is no wonder, with so many families barely surviving that so many children have dropped out of school.