Perspective: Life and Death in Baghdad -- Sent away after the birth of her baby, she returns to find him dead

WHEN I realised I was pregnant within a month of being married last June, I could barely contain my joy. I’m an ordinary young Iraqi woman, aged 26, with commonplace dreams of building a home and family. It seemed last summer that even in Baghdad, such dreams could come true.

My wedding had been different to most in the world. I wore a simple white dress and the closest members of my family came, but no friends. Strangest of all, my husband-to-be Samouel al-Rawi could not be there.

Samouel, who’s 30, was in hiding after receiving a death threat a few days earlier. He worked for a Canadian cargo company transporting goods for the US military, and some Sunni extremists told him that unless he supplied the names of employees and dates of cargoes being moved out of the airport he’d be killed. So he just stayed in the airport, day and night, for safety.

Read the rest at the Times of London