GROZNY, November 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Images of suffering children and mothers are everywhere in the emergency ward single room of Grozny's children's hospital.

A six-month-old child suffering from septicemia lies on an adult's bed, crying endlessly.

Two children aged three months are suffering from bronchial pneumonia.

The alarm system on two incubators began to wail, and the nurse set off for the balcony to switch on an emergency generator.

"We have power cuts every day," she explained.

In the daily struggle to survive in Chechnya, lack of medical equipment and supplies in the war-torn country is taking its toll on children, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Furthermore, international aid is unable to cope in the fight against illness and malnutrition.

"Bronchial pneumonia is the main disease of small children," said Sultan Alimkhadzhiev, chief doctor at Grozny's children's hospital.

"Their immune system is weak because of the abysmal sanitary conditions and the poor health of their mothers," Alimkhadzhiev lamented.

Although UNICEF and Medecins du Monde have enough drugs to treat 90 percent of diseases, Alimkhadzhiev said, the Chechen hospital don't have the equipment for example to detect cases of tuberculosis, which are becoming more and more common.

"We have the impression that the world has forgotten Chechnya. Every day one or two children die because of insufficient equipment or medication," he said.

As many as 84 percent of Chechen children suffer from neurological and psychological illnesses, said Hasan Gadayev, the head of Chechen Ministry of Health's maternity and child health division.

The information was revealed in an All-Russian Children's Health Survey during which 320,000 children underwent routine checkups in Chechnya.

According to Gadayev, more than 40 percent of the children have pathological vision and hearing problems, while about 70 percent of those examined have tuberculosis.

"This is an extremely high rate of incidence," he noted.

"So of course we dispensed proper medication and also preventative treatment, such as placement in special rehabilitation centers for those who live in areas where tuberculosis is widespread," he added.

The consequences of the Russian military attacks, the Health Ministry official warned, will have a major impact on the health of our children for many years to come.

The Grozny hospital was not saved from the Russian bombing as it has only 150 beds out of the 312 it is supposed to possess.

The missing beds are in a bombed-out part of the building, and repair work has been delayed indefinitely for lack of funds.

The southwestern district in which the hospital is located, Chernorechy, was particularly badly affected by bombing in the early stages of the second Chechen invasion four years ago.

Russian military vehicles spreading in the Chechen capital of Grozny cause daily fear even for ambulances which avoid traveling at night when they risk being fired on by Russian troops at the city's many checkpoints.

The water supply was destroyed during the first Chechen invasion (1994-96), and water is delivered in a truck by the Polish Humanitarian Organization which also supplies schools and hostels for displaced persons.

The water program, financed by the European Union which has earmarked 26 million euros (31 million dollars) for humanitarian aid including medical care to Chechens both inside Chechnya and in neighboring Ingushetia, serves around 59,000 people.

Among its beneficiaries are the children of School 41, in central Grozny.

In the main hall where the day's meals are served, with desks as tables, a group of 30 children wait for their lunch of soya supplied by the World Food Program (WFP) and distributed to all Chechen schools by the Danish Refugee Council.

"This is their lunch. Tomorrow it will be rice. We also provide rolls filled with meat, for two rubles (five cents) each," a kitchen-worker said.

The WFP provides 68,000 hot meals a day for the children of Grozny and the republic's six outlying regions.

The damage caused by the Russian invasion has also reduced by half the number of children the school is able to receive, its 700 children squeezed into the sole building that has remained intact.

"Our main problem is repairs," director Lisa Saidkhasanova said, pointing to the bombed-out buildings with their roofs caved in.

"There are lots of children who would love to study, but we don't have the room, or they stay at home," she said.

Thirty-four children are crammed into a small primary class-room, heated by a stove donated by the Red Cross.

However difficult their situation, these children are well-off compared with their comrades in the refugee camps in neighboring Ingushetia, where 7,000 children are able to receive some rudimentary education only because UNICEF is paying their teachers' salaries.

At least 100,000 civilians and 10,000 Russian troops are estimated to have been killed in both wars, but human rights groups have said the real numbers could be much higher.

The Russian military has a record of abuses in the Islamic republic, raising Russian and international waves of criticism.