MAYA GEBEILY

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Agony of Yazidi women torn between IS kids, or return home | AFP

July 14, 2019July 15, 2019 / Maya Gebeily / Leave a comment

[Published here July 14, 2019]

Baadre (Iraq) (AFP) – Freed after years in jihadist captivity, Jihan faced an agonising ultimatum: abandon her three small children fathered by an Islamic State fighter or risk being shunned by her community.

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Tahrir Square is #Baghdad at its best and its worst. It's hope and violence. It's freedom and repression. It's life and death. I've never seen young Iraqis this angry and invigorated, but also this acutely aware of the possible consequences for their activism. Tahrir itself is full of reminders of it, like this humble memorial for protesters killed since October 1. But some demonstrators say there's something they fear more than death: abduction. Last Friday, armed assailants attacked the Al-Sinek protest encampment near Tahrir, leaving at least 20 protesters and 4 police officers dead. As they retreated, the attackers packed dozens of activists, including wounded ones, into at least two large charter busses, four witnesses told AFP. Many of them have been released, but they refuse to say who held them. In the meantime, the spree of abductions has not stopped, with two more activists kidnapped today. Their families and friends fear the worst, praying they won't have to add their names to the memorials dotting Tahrir. Our AFP story mapping out abductions in the link in my bio.

Saddam's Palace, Babylon. The imposing monument the dictator built for himself has sat abandoned since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled him, leaving the platform pictured - where Saddam apparently used to sit on a throne - bare. Following the invasion, the US dismantled and tried to rebuild Iraq's institutions from the ground up. American officials, American soldiers, American dollars were everywhere, used to earn and exert influence. As a wave of protests over the last six weeks has made obvious, much has changed. With no clear Iraq policy from the White House, no close personal links between the two countries' leaders and a focus on squeezing Iran that may have alienated Iraqi figures, the ties are at their "coldest" ever, officials from both countries told me. Where US interests and influence once ruled, now stands an empty platform. Check the link in my bio for the full AFP story.

"They called us the PUBG generation. Look what the PUBG generation can do." Students like Samara have stolen the spotlight in #Iraq's protests, flooding the streets in Baghdad and the south to demand an overhaul to the entrenched political system they blame for unemployment and corruption. Story in bio.

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