An Austrian doctor working in Basra described a ”disastrous humanitarian and security situation” in Iraq, the Catholic press agency Kathpress reported on Thursday.
Dr Eva-Maria Hobiger said a number of seriously ill children, for whom there were hospital beds in Austria, were unable to leave Iraq because they had no passports.
”There is no Iraqi authority which issues passports. The Americans and British say it’s none of their business. The people are sitting in a single, big prison.”
Hobiger, running a project named ”Aladdin’s Lamp” for children with cancer, said people were forced to drink polluted and poisonous water from rivers. The number of typhus and cholera cases had increased sharply, she said.
There were no medicines for the chronically ill. In Baghdad there were large supplies, but the distribution system had collapsed completely, she added.
Hobiger said that despite the horrors and cruelty of the Saddam Hussein regime, many Iraqis were longing for a return to former conditions.
Among the younger, educated sectors of the population there was a huge suicide rate, she said. Poorer and simpler people were increasingly sympathising with radical Islamist groups. – Sapa-dpa