WAR BABY More than a decade after the Gulf War came to an end, Iraqi people say thousands of children are still dying every year as a direct result of Allied bombing and subsequent UN sanctions. Today Echo reporter BRENDAN MONTAGUE visits the Al Monsor children's hospital in Baghdad to meet the families... Brendan Montague Thursday, February 27, 2003 The Lincolnshire Echo LITTLE Saja Nasaralla is expected to die in the next few days as a result of Allied bombing in Iraq. But the tiny baby girl - who was born only three days ago - will not be a victim of the military attacks threatened by Britain and the United States in the coming weeks. Rather, Iraqi doctors say, she will be killed by the depleted uranium shells used in the last Gulf War, 12 years ago. Saja was born with multiple congenital deformities. She has a cleft lip and defects to the heart. Yesterday her grandmother Majeda Hassan (45) was anxiously waiting by the child's incubator at the Al Monsor Children's Hospital in Baghdad. Saja's mother has had to leave hospital to go home to look after her other five children. Her husband, a smallholder growing vegetables on the edge of Baghdad, cannot afford to be away from his work. The family's annual income will be less than a few hundred dollars a year. When Majeda spoke to the Lincolnshire Echo, through an interpreter, she pleaded with the Western military not to use the radioactive weapons in the next war. "It is so sad to see a baby in this condition," she said. "This is not a comfortable life for her - she will die at any time. "My family has never seen anything like this and I am sure the bombing is the reason. The doctor has told me that depleted uranium is the cause of this condition. "Now I am afraid that these shells may be used for a second time and this will all happen again. More children will die." Paediatrician Dr Ahmad Fadal said that although the hospital could not prove uranium poisoning was one hundred per cent to blame for the defects in Saja's face and heart, he was confident she was another victim of the Gulf War. "This baby is suffering because of the bombing," he said. "It is most likely her suffering is caused by depleted uranium. The number of cases just like this has increased - it is now in the thousands. Just in our hospital we see a hundred cases like this every year. Other babies die before delivery." Depleted uranium is a form of nuclear waste left over from power stations. It is one of the heaviest metals known to man and was used by the United States in tank-buster shells during the 1991 Gulf War. The shells pierce the shell of the tanks and explode, leaving a cloud of radioactive dust. This dust has been swept along by the wind and carried into the towns and cities. Saja's desperate plight was discovered by the Echo on the day the Human Shield volunteers vowed to take the United States to the international court on charges of war crimes. Founder and American Gulf War veteran Ken O'Keefe said: "I was never informed to keep away from downed tanks or armoured personnel carriers. "We are now in a situation 12 years later where I may find myself developing a cancer related to DU," he said yesterday. "The defects found in the Iraqi people have been significant. The south of the country has been particularly affected by DU and the rates are similar to those found in Japan after the Second World War bombing. "Women are frightened to give birth because of deformities and they do not know what is going to come out. This stuff will kill - not just present generations, but those in the future." At the Baghdad children's hospital, doctors say that sanctions have also led to the deaths of hundreds of sick children in the city - and that the coming war is already costing lives. A disease called Kala azar, which causes a high fever and then liver failure, has swept Iraq. Each year the hospital treats about 1,000 people with the disease. It is easily treated using pontostam, which the Iraqis used to buy from England. But the drug is embargoed under UN sanctions, according to Dr Fadal. British authorities will point out that Baghdad doctors could have all the drugs they need to treat their patients if President Saddam Hussein were to co-operate with the United Nations. They also suggest that withholding vital medical supplies helps Saddam turn ordinary Iraqis away from Britain and America. But the suffering of the Iraqi people goes on. Eighteen-month-old Hadal Auda is being treated in the hospital using medicine bought on the black market in Baghdad for just $12 - but her family were unable to buy the full course of treatment. The doctors hope the three-and-a-half bottles will be enough but know she really needs five. Three-quarters of the children infected get no treatment at all. Hadal's mother Karema (29) said: "Every day we went to the market, but the drugs are not always available there. When we got the drugs we were very happy because we just hope that they will make Hadal better. "I love my daughter and I get sick because she is sick. Her condition was so much worse before the treatment started. She desperately needs those drugs." Dr Fadal said an additional problem was that many farming families were now too scared of the expected bombing to travel into the city to visit the hospital. When they do arrive, the children are often too sick and there is nothing the doctors can do to help. Next door to the children's hospital is the Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Here the doctors suffer from the same frustrations. During the last war in 1991, the US bombed the bridge across the river, shaking the very foundations of the hospital. A bomb also exploded next to the hospital as recently as 1998, killing eight staff and patients and smashing every window in the building. Deputy manager Emad Tariq (32) said: "Nothing surprises us. We have lived throughwar many times before. Hospitals and the homes of ordinary people will be bombed - but we are ready." Trainee anaesthetist Hala Mumtaz (30) works in the intensive care unit and has two children aged under two. She said: "We have a shortage of drugs and facilities. Sometimes it takes so long for us to receive the drugs they may not act properly. "We all want to know what we have done to deserve such misery? They are torturing us. We have been suffering for more than 12 years - is this not long enough? "I have children and I have to think about how to feed them, and how to buy there clothes ... and how to stop chemicals getting to them." Trachea-oesophageal fistula is a treatable birth defect that sends food into the lungs, rather than the stomach. In Iraq the success rate of the operation to correct the problem was 100 per cent. But because of the lack of oxygen tents and sterile equipment many children who undergo the operation now die. But doctors continue with the treatment because this is often youngsters' only chance of survival. Simple pieces of medical equipment like intravenous drips are also scarce. Those now available have to be boiled and re-used rather than thrown away. The infection rate is up to 90 per cent. The hospital's emergency department is also desperately short of pain-killers and antibiotics. Consultant neurologist Naufal Sheaheed fears the new war will cause much more death and disease than in 1991 because the hospital is already lacking such essential supplies. "There are better ways of dealing with the situation than to go to war," he said. "The most important point to make about sanctions is the smallest people are most affected by them. "There are a lot of people with complications because of a lack of treatment and facilities in other areas of the country." Despite the harsh conditions, all the doctors and nurses pledged they would continue their work through any future Allied bombing. "The job is so hard because we cannot do what the family wants us to do because the treatment is not available," Dr Fadal said. "But we have to cope because people are in such need of our help. It is as simple as that."