“What do the Americans want from us?”

By Aws Al-Sharqi, IOL Iraq correspondent

BAGHDAD, December 19 (IslamOnline) – The long drawn-out sanctions the United States has imposed on Iraq have already wiped away the children’s smiles, and now with a proposed U.S. war looming on the horizons, fear lurks in every family home, and can especially be seen on the children’s faces.

Instead of sitting on school chairs at their desks in kindergartens or schools, the children of Iraq have been pushed into the world of work, polishing up their talents to look for all and any type of employment, heedless of the summer heat and winter cold.

Laith Abdel Qader, a 15 year old boy, works in the shoeshine business told IslamOnline, “I left school to support my father who is ill, as well as my younger siblings.”

“My mother died of poverty,” he says matter-of-factly, “My father couldn’t afford to get her medicine… That’s why I have to go to work.”

“I work from dawn to dusk to get my daily wages,” Laith says.

Laith wishes he could go back to school so he could, along with his peers, learn to read and write.

My sister tells our father: “Allah will make you triumphant over Bush and his gang”

“I want to be an officer in the Iraqi army so I can take revenge on the Americans and British who destroyed our country these past years.”

“I will never forget the shelling that destroyed my aunt’s house,” Laith remembers.

“I will never forget my cousin, Jaafar, getting killed by their bombs. And his three sisters, all of my aunt’s children, were killed in the war that Bush the father waged against us.”

With the innocence that only children can possess, he asked, “What do the Americans want from us?”

“Aren’t they fed up with killing and destroying?”

Hammam Hussein Khoga, 13 years old, is working in a garage that repairs car engines. His father is still serving in the Iraqi army in the Basra province, and Hammam believes that his duty is to help his family get by.

“I told my father: don’t worry about us while you are protecting the country. Even my little sister encourages him, saying: Allah will make you triumphant over Bush and his gang.”

Ibrahim Jaber, 14 years old, is a waiter in a coffee shop. “I work both the morning and night shift to help my mother.”

“My father was martyred in the 1991 war, and my mother has no one else to support her.”

“Every day,” Ibrahim adds, “my mother prays that Allah will keep all evil away from Iraq and its people.”

“I hope I will become a soldier so I can protect my country against the American aggressors. I want to kill the people who killed my father.”

Eleven-year-old Jawad Saeed Hady goes to school everyday – but not to study. Instead, he spreads out his goods near a school, trying to cater to the luckier students’ needs.

Jawad’s mother makes sweets at home which he sells in front of the school, in an attempt to do his share supporting his family. His father suffers from chronic asthma and can not work.

“I want to kill the people who killed my father.”

On the streets and at the petrol stations, Abd El-Salam sells incense sticks. “I have been working in this trade with my brothers since four years ago. We had to leave school after our father was paralyzed from taking medicine that was expired because of the sanctions that have been around for more than twelve years.

Magda Kazem flits around the streets, selling lottery tickets. “My mother,” she says, “has been coming along with me ever since my father died of cancer.”

“My father got cancer from being exposed to depleted uranium during the war,” she says.

Magda’s mother bemoans her daughter’s situation which forced her to leave school for financial needs, and prays, “May Allah expel the Americans and Israelis and make Iraq triumphant over its greedy enemies.”

Maged Amin Qassem is just nine years old. However, he helps his father collect recyclable material like glass, plastic, and old household pottery from the garbage.

Maged talks bitterly about his father’s suffering when one of his hands was amputated after a shell explosion near the Kuwaiti border, when he was working as a border guard.

Maged was obliged to leave school to help his handicapped father.

“I still dream of going back to school. I want to continue my education, and this will not happen until the sanctions are lifted, so that life can return to normal.”

“My family talks to me about how it beautiful it all was before the sanctions,” Maged says.

“That’s because ever since I was born until now, I have been living under sanctions.”