Category: Stories

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Stories

Returning to Baghdad: A mother, a daughter, and the weight of a thirty-year absence 

My mum left Baghdad in 1995. Born in 1969, she came of age under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, living through the Iran–Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait, and the first Gulf War. When she was proposed to, she left in search of stability — a life she couldn’t imagine finding at home. She never returned. Three decades later, we boarded a plane to Baghdad together in October 2025.

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Stories

“Election cycles tend to be nothing but seasons of performativity” 

Researcher and sociologist Ruba Ali Al-Hassani on the legacy of Tishreen, epistemic violence, and Iraq’s ongoing struggle for justice and legitimacy

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Stories

Football, film, and storytelling: Yamam Nabeel and the Iraq that lives beyond borders

A storyteller and cultural bridge-builder, Yamam Nabeel uses art, film, and community projects to preserve Iraqi memory and amplify voices too often silenced.
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Stories

Playing to Spacetoon and dancing with Sajida Obeid: living with Down’s syndrome in an Iraqi home 

In an Iraqi home where the sound of Spacetoon blends with the rhythms of Sajida Obeid’s songs, Fatima, who has Down’s syndrome, grew up between the warmth of protection and the sting of society’s gaze… a sixteen-year journey of rejection, love, and change.

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Stories

Two worlds, one stage: Hasan Habib on comedy, family, and the Iraqi diaspora 

For comedian Hasan Habib, stand-up is more than jokes: it is a dialogue on family, migration, and Iraqi identity, where laughter softens trauma and connects diaspora lives to their homeland.

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Stories

‘I live for a chance to leave Iraq’: How I survived torture and slavery at the hands of Islamic State 

A decade after being freed, a Yazidi woman tells how she endured being abducted by militants at the age of nine

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Stories

Offerings for entry to the paradise of Europe: Kurds who will migrate by any means possible 

A rubber boat will carry Mahabad, her husband, and their children from Turkey to Greece on a journey where they hope to reach Europe and build a new life there. But the sea had other plans…

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Stories

The Anaesthetist is not God: A dangerous journey through weapons, tribes, and medical errors 

Anaesthesia personnel in Iraq endure a dangerous and challenging journey, one that has led many medical students to avoid pursuing this speciality. This is the story of anaesthetists caught between death threats, tribal extortion, accusations of malpractice, and the broader deterioration and stagnation of the healthcare sector.

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Stories

Conforming to standards… from Dexone to weight-loss drugs to body sculpting 

It all began with Dexamethasone to get a curvy body, followed by weight-loss products to shed the extra kilos, and finally, body sculpting to achieve a whole new physique. It’s a long journey, the story of a woman who subjected herself to all these standards, trying pills, syrups, and surgeries along the way.

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Stories

“Hardships and perseverance”: A glimpse into the lives of people of short stature in Iraq 

People of short stature in Iraq face many hardships—from restaurants to government offices and even within their homes. Here is a glimpse into their invisible struggles.