Iraq’s wars and crises over recent years and decades have left over one and a half million children as orphans, disabled or with special needs. Today, in the ‘new’ Iraq, these children are struggling to find a path to a better future as medical facilities and government assistance remain woefully inadequate.

Fourteen year old Amal is one such child. She lost her sight, right hand and use of her left hand following a bomb explosion near her house in Abu Ghraib (25 km west Baghdad) in 2003.

“I was nine years old and I was playing near our house when the bomb exploded. I do not know where it came from. It took off my arm and took my sight,” she said while playing at home with her younger brother.

Following the accident Amal was forced to abandon her education and other activities as poor health and widespread violence confined her to staying indoors. Occasionally she ventured out for appointments with doctors who could do little to help her.

“She needs a surgical procedure that is very expensive outside Iraq and the chances of success decrease with time,” Amal’s mother told Niqash. “My daughter’s dearest wish is to go back to school. She keeps asking me about her classmates and her teacher,” she continued desperately.

In 2006, as the violence around them intensified, Amal’s father sent his wife and six children to live in Kout, in the centre of Wasit province. The following year he was killed by foreign security contractors in Baghdad. His wife was newly pregnant.

Haider, a 12 year old boy living near Kout, suffers a similar predicament. Born with a distorted skull and a rare tissue disease in his face, he urgently requires medical assistance abroad. The prohibitive cost of the treatment, however, means he is unlikely to ever attain such care .

Both of these patients and their families say that the government has done nothing to help their plight, adding that corruption and bureaucratic complications prevent the children from securing urgent help.

But, according to Salah Shibr, from the Ministry of Health, the government is simply not able to deal with the number of cases piling up on their desks, saying that the ministry lacks necessary data. “The whole issue is related to the need to prepare a study from bottom to top so the ministry is better informed of such cases,” said Shibr. “I do not want to escape responsibility but the heritage we’ve received is heavy and difficult to solve with a simple signature.”

Doctor Kawathar Ibrahim, head of the Child Care Commission in Wasit, a national body that works to help needy children, also says that they do not have enough resources. “The commission is directly related to the Prime Ministry but it lack funding and thus cannot bear such responsibility.”

In parliament there is some movement to push the issue onto the table. However to date little has been achieved. Barween Saleh Mawloud, a parliamentarian and member of parliament’s Women, Family and Child Commission told Niqash that “the commission submitted a proposal for funds for orphans in Iraq but… it was rejected by the State Council without a clear reason.” A new law to assist disabled children is currently under review she said.

According to Mawloud there is an urgent need for more focused attention on the issue as well as the provision of greater resources. The Child Care Commission is, she says, “a dead commission… ineffective and lacking in capabilities.”

Iraq’s decision-makers all deny responsibility for the tragic plight of these children, saying that the issues have not been brought to their proper attention.

While officials evade responsibility, Amal, Haider and many other children are left helpless, waiting desperately for the help that will offer them a better future. Every day they pay the price for the wars and disputes of their parents’ generation.