At Al Mansour Pediatric Hospital in Baghdad, malnourished children, covered with flies, lie on stained mattresses. Mothers and fathers sit on the beds, methodically swatting at the flies.
Medicine is in short supply.
The usual antiseptic odor of medical facilities has been replaced with the stench of urine, feces and decay. Even polio and measles are making a comeback, he says. A nurse runs by carrying a small bottle of oxygen. Her father and mother are frozen at the side of her bed while the nurse covers Nemya's face with the small oxygen mask. It is too late.