Malnourished kids found in Baghdad orphanage
BAGHDAD – U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage – some tied to their beds and too weak to stand, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
Photographs showed emaciated children lying on the floor, some of them tied to cribs; a U.S. soldier holding a bottle of water for one of the boys to drink; and American medics examining the children.
But an Iraqi Cabinet minister whose department is investigating the case criticized publicity surrounding the boys and said news reports were inaccurate.
“We totally reject the tricks they used to manipulate and distort facts and show the Americans as the humanitarian party. That could not be further from the truth,” said Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mahmoud Mohammed al-Radhi.
The minister said the institution in which the boys were housed had saved them from a certain death on the streets of Baghdad. All the boys, he said, were severely handicapped and abandoned by their families. He accused the Americans of staging a photograph of the children.
The story of the orphanage was first reported this week by CBS News, which broadcast pictures of the boys.
The U.S. military said the boys were between the ages of 3 and 15. It said many of the youngsters were found naked in a dark room with no windows.
Three women who claimed to be caretakers and two men – the orphanage director and a guard – were in the building when the soldiers arrived June 10, according to the military statement.
Adel Muhsin, the Iraqi Health Ministry’s inspector general, said arrest warrants were issued for three employees of the orphanage who have gone into hiding. He did not identify the three or say what jobs they held.
A probe into the case ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was under way in tandem with one by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Muhsin said.
The military said U.S. medics were called in to treat the children and that Iraqi soldiers notified local council members, who came to help the boys.