Nutrition mission to Iraq for UNICEF.

At the request of UNICEF, the authors conducted a rapid nutritional assessment of children from birth to five years of age in southern Iraq during the second half of June 1991. With support from local UNICEF staff, the nutrition team examined 680 children, measuring weight, height, and mid-upper arm circumference and observing clinical signs of anemia, vitamin A deficiency, and dehydration. These measurements and observations were performed in 14 rural, urban, and periurban settings in Basrah and Amarah governorates. Evidence of both acute and chronic malnutrition was found in large numbers of the children examined. However, the acute nutritional signs of impending famine were not evident at the time of the survey. This is true notwithstanding epidemic levels of infectious disease, market prices for basic food items three to 20 times prewar levels, and a reported crisis in mothers' ability to breastfeed. Other signs of impending famine (distress sales of family assets, disintegration of social structures, etc.) may have existed, but were not evident to the team.