These Iraqi refugee children make the best of a dire situation. Learn about the African heritage of many Iraqis in the sidebar “Revolt of the Blacks.”

But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.

A report from the non-governmental relief organization Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under 5. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a population of about 25 million.

According to a UN Children's Fund report released this month, "at least 2 million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Program assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other threats including interrupted education, lack of immunization services and diarrhea diseases."

IPS interviewed three children from different districts of Baquba, the capital city of Iraq's volatile Diyala province, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

Firas Muhsin is seven, and lives in Baquba with his mother. His father was killed two years ago by militants who shot him in his shop.

Firas attends school four hours every day near his house. On rare occasions he gets to play with neighbors' children, but always under the eyes of his mother.

Firas is allowed to move no more than 10 meters from the house; his mother is afraid of strangers. Kidnapping of Iraqi children is common now, and many are believed to have been sold as child laborers or as sex workers.

Iraqi officials and aid workers have recently expressed concern over the alarming rate at which children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq's unstable environment.

Omar Khalif is vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO established in 2004 to register cases of the missing and trafficked. He told reporters in January that on average at least two Iraqi children are sold by their parents every week. In addition, another four are reported missing every week.

"The numbers are alarming," Khalif said. "There is an increase of 20 percent in the reported cases of missing children over a year."

Firas spends hours each day sitting at the door looking at people. The door is his only outlet. In the afternoon, his mother calls him inside to do his homework. After dinner, his big hope is to watch cartoons - if there is electricity from their private generator.

The mother faces a shortage of kerosene needed just for heating. "My children feel cold and I cannot afford kerosene," she told IPS.

Many children Firas's age do not get to school at all. According to the U.N., 17 percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school, and an estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their families have been displaced. That adds up to 760,000 children out of primary school in 2006.

These are in-country figures and do not include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to other countries. UNHCR estimates that at least 2.25 million Iraqis have fled their country.

Qusay Ameen is 5 and lives with his mother, father, two sisters and a brother. His father was a sergeant in the former military and is now unemployed. He receives a monthly pension of $110. He tries to support the family by selling cigarettes on the roadside. Qusay's mother is a housekeeper. Qusay hopes to begin school next year when he turns 6.

After breakfast, always something simple like fried tomato with bread, Qusay wants to play, but he has nothing to play with but a small broken plastic car his brother found near the neighbor's door. He spends most of the morning playing with this car. He seems happiest when he gets to visit his neighbor's house, because they have a swing in the garden.

Like most Iraqi children now, Qusay has grown used to being in need. He rarely gets sweets or new clothes.

The family house is incredibly small - one bedroom and a place used as both kitchen and bathroom. Everyone sleeps in one room, which is extremely cold through the winter months. There are not enough beds or covering, and everyone has to sleep close together for warmth.

The house has few basic necessities and of course no television or useful household appliances. There is a small kerosene cooker used for both cooking and heating.
According to the U.N. Children's Fund, only 40 percent of children nationwide have access to safe drinking water and only 20 percent of people outside Baghdad have a working sewerage service. About 75,000 children are among families living in temporary shelters.

Ali Mahmood, 6, has lived with his uncle in Baquba since his parents were killed by a mortar explosion two years ago in random shelling by militants. Next year he will join primary school near his uncle's house.

Ali's days are alike and quiet. His only friends are his uncle's children. When they go to school, he simply spends his time alone. It does seem the uncle's family is not able to look after him as well as his own might have. His uncle Thamir is doing his best, but life is difficult and Thamir has responsibility for a big family.

Ali is deprived of just about everything in childhood; he has no place to play or things to play with. And he has nobody to think of his future.

And already, he has responsibilities waiting; he has been told he must take care of his younger brother when he grows up.

Firas, Qusay and Ali are all children, but none the way children should be.

Ahmed Ali, IPS (Inter Press Service) correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East. Dahr Jamail's dispatches, photos and commentary on Iraq are also posted at http://dahrjamailiraq.com.

Many Iraqis are descended from African slaves, called the Zanj, who freed themselves by repeatedly rebelling and defeating large armies. The illustration is of a 13th century slave market in nearby Yemen.

by Runoko Rashidi

Dedicated to Brother Mumia Abu-Jamal

The subject of African bondage anywhere is one of the most sensitive historical issues, and all too often it is asserted that most, if not all, of the great international movements of African people occurred only under the guise of slavery and servitude.
Obviously, as we are seeing, this has not at all been the case. The period of bondage is in fact dwarfed by the ages of magnificent African civilizations, glory and splendor, not just in Africa itself but throughout the global African community.

It was in early Iraq where the largest African slave rebellions occurred. Here were gathered tens of thousands of East African slave laborers called Zanj.

These Blacks worked in the humid salt marshes in conditions of extreme misery. Conscious of their large numbers and oppressive working conditions, the Zanj rebelled on at least three occasions between the seventh and ninth centuries. The largest of these rebellions lasted for 15 years, from 868 to 883, during which time our people inflicted defeat after defeat upon the Arab armies sent to suppress the revolt. This rebellion is known historically as the "Revolt of the Zanj" or the "Revolt of the Blacks."

It is significant to point out that the Zanj forces were rapidly augmented by large scale defections of Black soldiers under the employ of the Abbassid Caliphate at Baghdad. The rebels themselves, hardened by years of brutal treatment, repaid their former masters in kind, and are said to have been responsible for great slaughters in the areas that came under their sway.

At its height the Zanj rebellion spread to Iran and advanced to within 70 miles of Baghdad itself. The Zanj even built their own capital, called Moktara (the Elect City), which covered a large area and flourished for several years. The Zanj rebellion was ultimately only suppressed with the intervention of large Arab armies and the lucrative offer of amnesty and rewards to any rebels who might choose to surrender.
African people have always defied subjugation, and the Revolt of the Blacks is in and of itself a glorious page in African history and Black resistance movements. Through the Revolt of the Blacks, a now relatively little known episode in a part of the world that many of us regard as foreign and strange, we see African people doing what we have always done - asserting our essential dignity and standing up and demanding our inalienable human rights.

Source: "African Presence in Early Asia," by Runoko Rashidi and Ivan Van Sertima

Runoko Rashidi is a Pan-Africanist historian, researcher, writer, world traveler and public lecturer focusing on the African presence globally and the African foundations of world civilizations. Visit him at www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or write to Runoko Rashidi, P.O. Box 201662, San Antonio, TX 78220.

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