http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._bomblets_dc_1
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. children's fund UNICEF (news - web sites) expressed concern on Wednesday that Iraqi children might mistake yellow food packets being handed out by U.S.-led forces with small bombs with identical coloring.
"Confusing unexploded ordinance with food places children at huge risk of injury or death," UNICEF said, calling on the military to urgently change the color of the food packets.
A UNICEF statement said food packets known as "humanitarian daily rations" that were being handed out by the U.S. and British forces in Iraq (news - web sites) were covered in a bright yellow plastic wrap.
The color of the wrapping was identical to that of an air-dropped bomblet that UNICEF identified as a BLU 97.
A similar problem had arisen during the war in Afghanistan (news - web sites), where the U.S. military eventually changed the wrapping on food packets to blue, the U.N. agency said.
In Afghanistan, both the food packets and the bomblets were dropped from U.S. aircraft while in Iraq only the bomblets were being air-dropped. But children can still confuse the ration and unexploded ordinance, because of their identical coloring, UNICEF warned.
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