Children of the Iraq War
There are many Iraqi children whose lives have been
forever changed by war. We cannot tell all of their stories
of loss and hardship, but we can tell some. These were given
to us by an organization that UUSC works within Iraq.
Samer
Fifteen-year-old Samer’s hands tremble as he tells us the
story of how armed men kidnapped two of his older brothers
more than a year ago. There is no news about them, and his
family believes they were killed. He says, “My family was
destroyed, and I’m scared about what happened to them.”
Sarah
At 12 years old, Sarah is one of three breadwinners in her
family. She sells vegetables in the local market to earn
money. Her two brothers, nine-year-old Hameed and
eight-year-old Amar, collect tin cans and bread from the
garbage. All together, they earn 10,000 Iraqi Dinar (or $8
US) per day and live with their mother in an old rented
house. They miss the simplest things from their life before
their father was killed in ethnic violence.
Read
more stories.
Youssif’s story: An Iraqi boy’s survival struggles
Five-year-old Youssif is scarred for
life, his once beautiful smile turned into a grotesquely
disfigured face — the face of a horrifying act by masked
men. They grabbed him on a January day outside his central
Baghdad home, doused him with gas, and set him ablaze.
Read the
whole story.
Testimony by Lydia Sapp, 17,
whose father was serving in Iraq
My name is Lydia Sapp. I am 17 years old and a junior at
Concord-Carlisle High School in Massachusetts. I do not live
in either town; I go to that high school because my father,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Sapp, is an English teacher there.
Rather, he was a teacher there before he was deployed to
Kuwait and is now in Iraq. He has spent many years of his
life in the military.
Read the whole story.
Robin Ponton, 13, whose father
was serving in Iraq, wrote the following letter to Congress
Dear Members of Congress,
My father's name is Staff Sgt. Charles Pollard with the
307th Military Police Reservist Company out of Pittsburgh,
Pa. He is a 22-year veteran and has been serving his country
in Iraq for almost a year now. Ever since he went over
there, I’ve lived in fear for his life. He writes to me
every chance he gets and we try to send letters to him once
or twice a week.
Read the whole story.
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