Hungern wie im Krieg

A German news-site (heise.de/tp) assembles the available links on the food-cutbacks issue, and explains this better than I did, in a post called "Going hungry like in Wartime: A new catastrophe coming in Iraq?" And they have one link that I missed in the earlier posts, one from the UN news agency IRIN dated December 4, quoting remarks by the Iraqi Trade minister on the exact details of the cutbacks and the budgetary shortfall. (Five items will be distributed instead of ten; there is a vague remark by the Trade minister about introducing means-testing). A health official in Baghdad is quoted:

Mohammed Falah Ibrahim, a food security expert at the Baghdad health directorate, said cutting items from the food rations’ system would lead to hunger in many parts of Iraq.

“These things should be studied very carefully, especially the cutting of children’s milk, because this will leave many poor families in danger and especially IDPs [internally displaced persons]," Ibrahim said.

“There should be a complementary plan in place to ensure that financial aid reaches those poor families who will be affected by this, otherwise many Iraqis could die of hunger," Ibrahim said.