Techfun

Control Room - Iraq’s new crisis: Moms, dads abandoning kids – CNN.com:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The head of Iraq’s main humanitarian group said an 18-year-old approached him with a baby suffering from leukemia. The desperate mother said she’d do "anything" for treatment for her child — and then offered herself up for sex.

Said Ismail Hakki breaks down in tears as he recalls that story. Leukemia can be treatable to a degree in much of the world, but not in Iraq. The baby died two months later.

"It shook me like hell," said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent. "All my life I’ve been a surgeon. I’ve seen blood; I’ve seen death. That never shook me — none whatsoever. But when I see the suffering of those people, that really shook me."
The plight of Iraq’s children is nearing epidemic proportions, he said, with mothers and fathers abandoning their children "because they’re becoming a liability." The parents don’t do it out of convenience, they do it out of desperation. Video Watch the plight of Iraq’s children »

"When you become so desperate, you tend to just throw everything up and go," Hakki said.

"Every time I look at those children, I ask myself first, ‘What crime have those children committed?’"

Hakki says Red Crescent has the monumental task of treating and feeding more than 1.6 million children under the age of 12 who have become homeless in their own country. That’s roughly 70 percent of the estimated 2.3 million Iraqis who are homeless inside Iraq.

Go read the rest at the link at the top.  I’d say something here but frankly, I’m speechless.