The sanctions are making sure that the devastation begun with the bombing inexorably, increasingly, kills the people here. Basra has a few factories which receive priority for electricity during the day, and power is restored to our streets for just a few hours most evenings. These families we stay with cannot afford air coolers, even where there is power to run them. But the daily power outage deprives them even of fans. And other things.
Children get heat rash routinely.
People have to adapt to life in the dark. But we also see how children play in these streets when the TV cuts out. We witness tremendous creativity under seige. Yet we see how easily children become ill, subsisting on the deficient ration. Immunities are lowered, and that means death in streets filled with garbage and raw sewage.