BASRA: It took eight years for Nur Muhammad, 35, finally to fall pregnant with the child she desperately wanted. Last week, Ali, her pride and joy, became the youngest victim of the upswing in violence.

The four-month-old baby boy fell ill on last Monday with a fever, the day fighting broke out in Basra, the second-biggest oil city of Iraq. The street where the family lives became a battlefield, imprisoning them in their home, unable to get help.

“The disease spread so fast. My husband tried to leave our home to look for help but he was shot in his leg in front of our house,” Muhammad said. “My only child was seriously sick and I also had to look after my injured husband. I was forced to use a knife sterilised with a lighter to take the bullet from his leg.”

No one was able to reach the house with medicine or food until Friday afternoon. Ali had died in the morning. “It took me a few hours to realise my son had become an angel. He was shining and had a smile on his face,” she said. “I waited all my life to have my baby and now a ridiculous political fight for supremacy took him away from me.”

Muhammad, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, was in deep shock. “I don’t have a reason to live any more. My husband threatened to divorce me if I didn’t give him a child and now I doubt he will stay married to me now that Ali has been taken.”

Since Monday, when Basra erupted in violent clashes between the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi government, hundreds of families have been unable to leave their homes to look for food, water, health care, and oil for generators.

Officials report that more than 160 have been killed and at least 400 injured in the last five days.

“By the time many of the injured reach the hospital, they cannot be saved. The difficulties in getting to medical centres also costs lives. Even medical staff can’t get to work as the situation on street remains critical,” said a clinician at Basra Main Hospital, who asked to remain anonymous. “We are lacking medical supplies and parts of the hospitals have no electricity. Pregnant women are risking home deliveries.”

Khalid Jalal, 36, a pharmacist and father of three, said his family had been without food and electricity since Tuesday. He said: “My children are starving and masked militants have prohibited us from leaving our home. I cannot stand seeing my kids crying for food and forced to drink unclean water because militants believe they are God’s soldiers.

“God doesn’t want a human being to suffer but that is what the fighters and the government are giving us, rather than the promised US democracy. They are looking for supremacy while innocent people die for no reason,” he said. “I was happy when the British troops left Basra, but now I urge them to come back to save the lives of my children.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross is concerned about the humanitarian impact of fighting in Basra and Baghdad and says many families are now reduced to bringing their own generators to Baghdad hospitals to ensure they have sufficient power supplies.

Schools, universities government offices and shops are closed in Basra and many neighbourhoods of Baghdad. Streets are empty and few faces can be seen near windows.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service