Lebanese mothers lament war's effect on children

BEIRUT, Aug 12 (Reuters) Can there be a worse time to have a child than in a war? Many women have fled Israeli bombings in south Lebanon or Beirut's Shi'ite-dominated southern suburbs to give birth or seek treatment for their sick children in the city's Governmental University Hospital. And to fear for their future, as their own mothers did in previous wars.

Fatima Younis, 28, gave birth to baby Nour on Thursday: ''Of course I wasn't expecting to deliver him into this situation. I've no idea where to go, I'm confused ... Who on earth would want to have a child in this war?'' Mona Soloh, 22, has a one-year-old boy called Omar.

''I'm scared he'll be traumatised,'' she said.

''God knows, I'm just so weary. What will happen later? He'll just grow up in suffering. He has no home and no school. And there's no more work for us either.'' Vegetable seller Jameel Hussein al-Ali has brought his 2-year-old son Ahmed to get treatment for leukaemia.

''He's going to die if we don't get any medicine for him. I'm 48, but I feel like I'm 98.'' Samah Shehab, 9-1/2 years old, was playing outside her home in a village near Tyre when an Israeli rocket landed next to her, burning her arms and legs.

''When I came round, my arms and legs were really hurting,'' she said. ''I'm scared of the war, I want to go back home to be with my family.'' Nawal Naeem, 31, says the government has done little to make sure that she and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam -- in a cast from her hips down because of a fall -- will have a home to go back to in the south.

''These ministers come and take pictures with us just to show the media they're supporting us, and they actually cry,'' she said. ''They must have put eye drops in their eyes.

''My children keep asking me 'When do we go home?', and I keep saying 'tomorrow'. But how long is 'tomorrow' going to last? Our children won't know safety and stability.'' It's a feeling that is shared by Israeli parents who have had to flee their own homes from the barrages of Hizbollah rockets that Israel is trying to put an end to. It's also a feeling that has been passed down through Lebanon's generations.

Most of the parents in the hospital were themselves born or growing up during the Lebanese civil war, from 1975 to 1990, and all remember the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.

Dalal el-Azayer has fled north with her 11-month-old boy: ''The same way my family was in the war, we're in a war. It's been 30 years of war -- does that mean we can never have kids?'' REUTERS PDM KP0855