Kidneys for Sale at $500 Each

Kandela, Peter, New Statesman (1996)

In Iraq, people walk barefoot, and doctors have lost interest in ethics.

Baghdad today is a very different place from the modern, affluent city I knew in the 1980s. After nine years of war and sanctions, everyone's daily life is dominated by the need to survive the shortages, the unfamiliar rigours of poverty, the collapse of services. Cracks are appearing in the social fabric that may, in the long term, prove more difficult to repair than bombed power stations and cracked sewers.

Walking down the street, one sees the evidence of poverty everywhere. Once-fashionable clothes are now shabby and patched, and it is common to see people walking barefoot in the city centre. Old and noisy cars emit stinking exhaust, and their rusty holes are covered with an ingenious patchwork of materials.

Anything is …

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Publication information: Article title: Kidneys for Sale at $500 Each. Contributors: Kandela, Peter - Author. Magazine title: New Statesman (1996). Volume: 128. Issue: 4446 Publication date: July 26, 1999. Page number: 14. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 1999 Gale Group.

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