While politicians and pundits debate the future of Iraq, Iraq's war kids are suffering horrific conditions. CBS News ran a story on Monday about the nightmare conditions at one Iraqi orphanage.
"They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building."
At the orphanage, soldiers found children starving to death while the caretakers sold off food and supplies on the black market. The brutality of the scene was almost more than the troops could bear to see.
But all hope is not lost for Iraq's war kids. Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told of the chance for recovery that these kids have, if help comes in time.
There was nothing more emotional than finding one boy who Army medics did not expect to survive. For Gibson, that was the hardest part:
Seeing a boy who was at the orphanage, where [CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan] reported from, "with thousands of flies covering his body, unable to move any part of his body, you know we had to actually hold his head up and tilt his head to make sure that he was OK, and the only thing basically that was moving was his eyeballs," Gibson explained. "Flies in the mouth, in the eyes, in the nose, ears, eating all the open wounds from sleeping on the concrete."
All that, and the boy was laying in the boiling sun — temperatures of 120 degrees or so, according to Gibson.
Looking at the boy today, as he sits up in his crib without help, it is hard to believe he is the same boy, one week later — now clean and being cared for along with all the other boys in a different orphanage located only a few minutes away from where they suffered their ordeal.
This is the hope that War Kids Relief provides. By providing a sanctuary from the horrific violence and abuse that permeates Iraq, War Kids Relief works to end the nightmares. With your support, we can make a real difference in these kids' lives. Together, we can help end the nightmares, and give Iraq's war kids a chance not just for a better future, but to live.