Sir - I have lived in Jordan now for the past nine years and have seen the effects of the economic sanctions on the Iraqi people, both here in Jordan and in Iraq itself. I agree with Niall Andrews (The Irish Times, August 7th) that life under sanctions cannot be called life. It is merely a living hell for most people. I visited Iraq in May and while I had to endure the lack of electricity in 40C heat for only 10 days, the people of Iraq have endured this and much worse for the past 10 years.
Everywhere I heard stories of lack of medicine and food. One woman told us that her family had searched all of the north of the country for blood-bags to give blood to her 34-year-old brother who had leukemia. They had blood but no bags.
There is no point in repeating what Mr Andrews said so well but it needs to be noted that thousands of Iraqis have fled the country, many making their home illegally here in Jordan. These people, women mostly, live nine or 10 to a room and make a living by selling cigarettes in the market. It is a sad revelation to me that a five-year-old child who has worked on the streets selling cigarettes and begging for the past two years is the sole earner on whom her five siblings and her mother depends. Sadder still is that this child feels this is a normal life. Although she is in school now, thanks to the generosity of the local parish, she is now for the summer back selling cigarettes at the traffic lights.
I thank Mr Andrews for raising this issue and pray that some solution will be found. For surely no one can seriously think that the starving of a nation and the decimation of its moral and social fabric can have any results save the destruction of a country and the slaughter of its innocents. - Yours, etc.,
Mary Burke, Franciscan Missionary of the Divine Motherhood, Amman, Jordan.