He was referring to the Iraqi cities which have witnessed the heaviest aerial bombardments or ground fighting since the US-led invasion began eight days ago. “There are 5.7 million children of primary school age in the country... A minimum figure of 10 percent of these children would need support. It could be much bigger,” de Rooy said.

While UNICEF has no surveys or studies of the potential effects of the bombing on children, de Rooy told how the nine-year-old son of a local UNICEF worker in Baghdad had to be sedated after windows of their home were shattered in an attack. “This is one example. We don’t know what we will find when we go back. We suspect there might be a major issue of traumatized children,” he said. The United Nations pulled all its international aid agency staff out of Iraq before the assault. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also expressed concern at the psychological effect bombing may have on children, the elderly and the physically and mentally disabled.

Meanwhile, Iraqi doctors in the southern port town of Umm Qasr yesterday handed over to British troops a list of urgently needed medicine and equipment as the first aid shipment was due to dock. “The three crucial problems are electricity, water and food supplies,” said the director of the town’s Port Hospital, Dr. Muhammad Maizer.

He said the lack of fresh drinking water had led to many ailments in the town of 40,000 people as residents turned to pipes contaminated by sewage. Food was also short but not as much of a problem because many families had stockpiled months of government rations ahead of the US-led war on their country. Maizer said he hoped the much-delayed arrival of the British ship Sir Galahad later yesterday, with its load of 500 tons of food and water, would finally herald the start of the humanitarian bridge long promised by Washington and London.

But in one of his wards, bitterness at the conflict and the delay in getting basic necessities had already set in. Ali Walli, a 55-year-old civilian who was being treated for a shrapnel wound to his left leg caused when allied forces fired 10 rockets into his neighborhood to suppress a lone sniper on Sunday, said: “I think the Americans are the cause of this unhappiness. I blame them.” His son, Amin Ali, 23, lay in another bed with a similar injury.