The Children of Fallujah: The Medical Mystery at the Heart of the Iraq War
Publisher: The Nation
Author(s): Laura Gottesdiener
Date: 2020
Topics: Assessment, Public Health, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
Countries: Iraq, United States
Three years after American soldiers besieged her city, Iraqi pediatrician Samira Alani began to see a problem in the maternity ward. Women were bearing infants with organs spilling out of their abdomens or with their legs fused together like mermaids’ tails. Some looked as if they were covered in snakeskin. Others emerged gasping, unsuccessfully, for air. No one knew what was wrong with the babies, although almost no one was trying to find out, either. It was 2007, the height of the political and sectarian violence unleashed by the US invasion and occupation. Fallujah, where Alani lived and worked, was considered one of the most unstable and inaccessible cities on earth.