The war has orphaned many, but some help is at hand, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad.
Wajdy is from Babil, the Arabic name for Babylon. During the second century BC, Babylon's greatest ruler, Hammurabi, produced the first code of law. In the sixth century BC, Nebuchadnezzar II built the hanging gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Babylon is great no more. Today the partially reconstructed antique city is guarded by US troops to prevent pillage, while the modern town is afflicted by the postwar deprivations suffered by the rest of Iraq.
Four months ago, Wajdy took a bus to Baghdad where he joined thousands of Iraqi children who are living rough in the streets. He is a tall brown youth of 17, well mannered and soft spoken. "I lived in an orphanage until the war," he says in fluent English. "The orphanage was very good. I reached the fifth standard in the secondary school." During the war the orphanage stopped functioning, and the children left. He came to the capital in search of work and found none.
I met him at the day-centre run by the French non-governmental organisation, Enfants du Monde, in co-operation with UNICEF. Wajdi is one of 25 street children at the centre today. He comes every day at seven in the morning for a bath, a change of clothing and three meals - breakfast, a cooked lunch and a picnic pack to take away at seven in the evening when he returns to his billet in the hot and dusty garden of the Sheraton Hotel. He stays there because it is relatively safe.
US troops and Iraqi guards provide security for the Sheraton and the Palestine Hotel across the street. Wajdi hangs round the front door of the Palestine Hotel in the hope that one of the journalists staying there might hire him as a translator.
But people are afraid of street children.
Many take drugs and steal. Wajdi says he doesn't do drugs. "I want to live a normal life, find work. In September I will go to school." Three younger children on the divan in the sitting room are all too clearly drug users. A somnolent Zaman (11) sniffs glue. Dua (12) coming out of a drug haze, is looking around. Amer(10) who calls himself "Muhammad", is hyped-up on an unknown substance.
His eyes are bright, he jumps up and down talking all the time. Marie Catherine Arnal, who runs the centre, remarks, "Amer is a character. Every day he has a different name and a different story."
Besides sniffing glue and paint thinner, the children take drugs used to treat Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia. "These are very cheap," says Marie Catherine. "Ten for 1,000 Iraqi dinars \." A tiny girl, who could be six or seven, sleeps so soundly on the divan across the room that even Amer-Muhammad cannot rouse her.
Children have counselling at the centre, and enjoy the basic amenities of ordinary life, including television. A doctor tends their ailments. Their lice and fleas have to be eliminated. Dossiers are kept so they can be identified and, in certain cases, relatives can be found to care for them. Some of the children have parents who abandoned or abused them. A few ran away from home. Others, like Wajdy, are orphans. "We try to work them back into extended families or find them foster homes," Marie Catherine says. "We are arranging a hostel where they can sleep when the day centre closes. It should be ready in a few weeks."
"We do not want to institutionalise these children," states Geoffrey Keele of UNICEF. "They are free to come and go as they please. We get them to come by sending out mobile units with food, a shower, a counsellor. We tell them about the drop-in centre. The news gets round."
He adds: "Before the 1991 Gulf war there were no street children. Homeless children were put in orphanages, children who begged were incarcerated."
Street children began to appear because of the devastation wrought by that war and the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran conflict.
In the mid-80s investment in social infrastructure was severely reduced. Children, in particular, suffered from a shortage of schools, a declining healthcare system, and degradation of basic services.
"The overall health of children is now worse than it was before the war. There has been a doubling of disease. Seventy per cent of all child deaths before the war were due to diarrhoea and respiratory disease. A UNICEF survey conducted in May showed that 72 per cent of all children had at least one bout of these diseases, 18 per cent had 13 bouts, indicating that they are chronic cases." He is somewhat hopeful. "Since May things are improving. Slowly."
Not everywhere. In Rashad, the poorest quarter of Baghdad, I saw for the first time during my many years in the Arab world, children of six or seven running naked in the street.
"UNICEF is doing unusual jobs these days," Mr Keele continues. "Garbage collection in Baghdad and other cities, rebuilding facilities for the desalination of water in Basra, and rehabilitation of 80 potable water pumping and sewage treatment centres in Baghdad."
The agency is also trying to find employment for children who are engaged in dangerous work, such as dismantling wrecked tanks and munitions for scrap.