UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Nearly 1 million Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition despite recent exemptions in the 6-year-old international embargo against Iraq, a U.N. agency said Wednesday. Iraqi television showed women wailing over the bodies of eight children at a Baghdad hospital Wednesday -- claiming the children had died because of acute shortages of food and medicine. One coffin contained the bodies of two babies. Iraq's Parliament scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss ``the catastrophic situation Iraqi children are being subjected to because of the sanctions,'' the official Iraqi News Agency said. The United Nations imposed sweeping sanctions on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The U.N. Security Council said the embargo will stand until Iraq proves it has destroyed its long-range missiles and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The U.N. Children's Fund said the health and well-being of Iraq's children had dramatically deteriorated since the sanctions were imposed. ``It is clear that children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship,'' said Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF's representative in Baghdad. ``They must be protected from the impact of sanctions. Otherwise, they will continue to suffer, and we cannot accept that.'' The report was released as the United Nations is considering modifying the yearlong oil-for-food program, under which Iraq can export up to $2.14 billion of oil worth every six months to buy food and medicine. The chairman of the U.N. committee that manages the program, Antonio Monteiro, said Wednesday there was a ``general sentiment'' to increase the amount of oil Iraq can sell by 50 percent when the next phase of the oil-for-food program begins next month. UNICEF said its findings on Iraq's children were based on surveys taken in cooperation with the Iraqi government of 6,375 households in each of the 15 provinces of southern and central Iraq. Following the U.N. Security Council's refusal last week to move toward lifting the U.N. sanctions, Iraqi officials emphasized the suffering of their people Wednesday. The Iraqi News Agency quoted Health Minister Omed Medhat Mubarak assaying that more than 7,000 children ages 5 and under died in October as a result of ``severe lack of medicine and other necessary requirements.'' Parliament Speaker Saadoun Hammadi blamed the United States for prolonging the sanctions. ``They should take their hands off our country,'' he said in English. ``The embargo must be terminated.''
