Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Saturday
Unexploded Bombs a Risk to Iraqi Children
Aired July 26, 2003 - 12:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Iraq remains a dangerous place, not only for U.S. troops, but for ordinary Iraqis, particularly the children. Here is CNN's Rym Brahimi in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 12-year-old Marwa Fadhi, it is already too late. "I didn't feel a thing," she recalls. "I was out and I don't know."
On April 8, a day before Baghdad fell to the hands of U.S. troops, Marwa says she stepped on a cluster bomb, about the size of the half liter bottle of water right in front of her house.
"Every day the planes came," her mother tells us. "Day and night they flew over us. How could we know they had dropped cluster bombs at this place?"
Cluster bombs dropped by U.S. planes during the war over some residential areas. In another neighborhood, weapons munitions, stockpiled and abandoned by Iraqi forces.
(on camera): The people here would like to see these remnants of war removed. In Baghdad alone, there are almost 100 missiles like these; across Iraq, roughly 1,000. And none of them are either protected or cordoned off.
(voice-over): That's according to the U.N. Children's Fund, which says even inactive missiles like these are a threat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They exhale fumes, they have corrosive acids, which can burn children. There have been cases already.
BRAHIMI: UNICEF says although the conflict in Iraq is over, hundreds of children throughout the country continue to be maimed and killed by remnants of war. I'm
"so afraid for my children," says this man, "I don't let them out of the house when I'm not around." This man and his family live only 300 meters away from the missiles.
Another neighborhood, abandoned when Iraqis rolled in a mobile radar with four surface-to-air missiles on top. On the ground, around it, anti-aircraft cartridge cases where the kids now play.
The coalition authority, whose responsibility it is as the occupying power to deal with this problem, says they plan to send a team of experts in coming days to start cleaning this up.
Meanwhile, Marwa has since tried to regain a normal life with an amputated leg. She insisted on returning to school, carried sometimes by her mother. She passed her exams. All Marwa wants now is a prosthesis, but the doctor says she needs special help only available outside of Iraq.
As things go in Baghdad, Marwa is lucky, she's alive. Two days before we visited her with UNICEF workers, her 8-year-old sister was killed by a stray bullet.
Rym Brahimi, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 26, 2003 - 12:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Iraq remains a dangerous place, not only for U.S. troops, but for ordinary Iraqis, particularly the children. Here is CNN's Rym Brahimi in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 12-year-old Marwa Fadhi, it is already too late. "I didn't feel a thing," she recalls. "I was out and I don't know."
On April 8, a day before Baghdad fell to the hands of U.S. troops, Marwa says she stepped on a cluster bomb, about the size of the half liter bottle of water right in front of her house.
"Every day the planes came," her mother tells us. "Day and night they flew over us. How could we know they had dropped cluster bombs at this place?"
Cluster bombs dropped by U.S. planes during the war over some residential areas. In another neighborhood, weapons munitions, stockpiled and abandoned by Iraqi forces.
(on camera): The people here would like to see these remnants of war removed. In Baghdad alone, there are almost 100 missiles like these; across Iraq, roughly 1,000. And none of them are either protected or cordoned off.
(voice-over): That's according to the U.N. Children's Fund, which says even inactive missiles like these are a threat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They exhale fumes, they have corrosive acids, which can burn children. There have been cases already.
BRAHIMI: UNICEF says although the conflict in Iraq is over, hundreds of children throughout the country continue to be maimed and killed by remnants of war. I'm
"so afraid for my children," says this man, "I don't let them out of the house when I'm not around." This man and his family live only 300 meters away from the missiles.
Another neighborhood, abandoned when Iraqis rolled in a mobile radar with four surface-to-air missiles on top. On the ground, around it, anti-aircraft cartridge cases where the kids now play.
The coalition authority, whose responsibility it is as the occupying power to deal with this problem, says they plan to send a team of experts in coming days to start cleaning this up.
Meanwhile, Marwa has since tried to regain a normal life with an amputated leg. She insisted on returning to school, carried sometimes by her mother. She passed her exams. All Marwa wants now is a prosthesis, but the doctor says she needs special help only available outside of Iraq.
As things go in Baghdad, Marwa is lucky, she's alive. Two days before we visited her with UNICEF workers, her 8-year-old sister was killed by a stray bullet.
Rym Brahimi, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
