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Nine years of reduction of life expectancy

Nine years of reduction of life expectancy
2003. Grandmother and grandaughter at the foot of the 9th century Malwiya minaret in the Great Mosque in Samarra, a city 125 kilometres to the south of Baghdad. Photograph: José J. Revenga © José J. Revenga
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Nine years of reduction of life expectancy

The deterioration of basic living conditions and the collapse of the Iraqi public healthcare system determined spectacular increases in the mortality rates of all segments of the Iraqi people of both sexes: among newborns and under 5 years, the chronically ill and the elderly, and among pregnant women.

As a result, life expectancy at birth in Iraq dropped from 66 in 1989 to 57 in 1994, a drop of 9 years in the first five years of sanctions,  in such a way that the life expectancy of the girl in the image was already approaching that of her grandmother.