During a patrolling, American and Iraqi troops came across an orphanage in Baghdad with 24 severely malnourished and abused boys. The boys in the age of 3 to 15 were found naked in a darkened room without any windows at the government-run special-needs home.
Emaciated children lying naked on concrete floors in their own waste, as if not fed for days together were tied to their beds. To their surprise soldiers discovered a locked room with food and packed clothes, pointing the needle towards the organizers of the special home who apparently were starving the kids, to sell their food and clothes at a local market.
An American military advisory team accompanied by Iraqi soldiers gazeed over a wall and were astonished to find corpses lying on the floor. When they raided the squalor they found it were not corpses but alive malnourished kids awaiting their death. Many of the children were covered in their own feces.
The soldiers arrested two security guards under the orders of Prime Minister al-Maliki following the discovery. Other staff members had apparently run away from the orphanage weeks ago.
However, Abeer Mahdi al-Chalabi, head of the orphanage section of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, denied that the children had been maltreated when contacted on telephone. She said that they were not orphans but special needs children and were tied up for their own benefit because they were seriously physically and mentally ill.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered an investigation.
Meanwhile, the battered children have been moved to another orphanage in the city to recover from their ordeal.
Via: Washingtonpost
