Welcome to the documentary from the BBC world service where we report the world, however difficult the issue. However, hard to reach, costs from the BBC world service. I supported by advertising. The twenty ninth of July nineteen, eighty one prince Charles marries, lady Diana spencer and eight year old boy, watches a fairy tale unfold. An hour later he's missing. Then one day in twenty twenty, a bbc reporter gets a call from a mysterious source, visual, the extraordinary true story of a boy who went missing while the world looked the other way all lives are not created. The same listened to visual. the

the doktor- had very good knowledge of banking systems, two point: one billion dollars and stolen funds, money laundering operations. Cyber criminal group needs a smart guy from the bbc will service the master sized is back. new season catch up the seas in one of the park has now by searching for the lazarus heist wherever you get, your bbc part casts and get ready precision to coming next hello, I'm james reynolds welcome to the documentary from the BBC world service. We bring together people from around the world to discuss how major events affect their lives, and this time is conversations between iraqis at home and abroad on the impact of the iraq war. Twenty years, after the? U s lead invasion, we being reflecting on the two decades since the Iraq war with those living both in the country and abroad

They show how the many consequences continue to affect them to this day, even if their living thousands of miles away last year. I want your fireworks show for the very first time and with thin me there was a war. I could not separate that from imagining that these were bullets in the sky and I'm going to die. The, u s called its invasion of Iraq in march, two thousand and three shock and all

in that year. The iraqi leader, saddam hussein would be captured, he'd later be put on trial and executed. The american government claimed that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction was a threat to international peace, but even after an exhaustive search, no such weapons were ever found. I remember visiting iraq myself what half a dozen times between the years two thousand and three two thousand and six and seeing the effects of war getting deeper and deeper, and the cost of the invasion continues to be counted in so many ways. No one knows exactly how many iraqis have died as a result of the war. Estimates, though, are all in the hundreds of thousands. The political instability that followed saw the rise of jihadist extremists,

funding is lennox state. There was a civil war and the spread of violence and terrorism across the region. Inevitably, then, the invasion meant that the lives of millions of iraqis changed forever or at least bodies are time. Less are flesh fresh, our faces reborn raw snakes sharing their skins. The gales are bawling crawling, dragging storms of ash, watching us with the blood of those in combat, not fighting but slaughtered and defeated. Fighting that was an extract from a poem by twenty seven year old, creative writer yeldo honey. It's called my new lullaby about that first day of the war that yeldo experienced as a young girl

she moved to the united states three years ago and uses writing and poetry to a she puts it process her trauma. We brought Together with forty one euro bow some stuff for whose and academic whose be living in the uk since twenty thirteen like yadda, she grew up under saddam Hussein. I began by asking her what she remembered of the invasion, despite the fact that I was a child. I sensed the fear and the discomfort that my family experienced. I didn't know particularly why, but I didn't know that there was something wrong going on as actually talking to my uncle a few days ago, and I told him of a memory I had of hand where we were sitting in the house and adopt the same came on than you

It is- and I remember my uncles pitting on the tv and as a kid I asked him who are you spitting at and he was like. Oh someone on the tv. Of course he couldn't say for dumb because he would be probably executed the next day if I said anything in school about it, but I did know. I don't know why. It was interesting that I actually knew that he was spitting at saddam and I wasn't supposed to say anything about it. I was always supposed to say positive things. I was always supposed to call for down not saddam, but father baba sudden. So I sensed the discomfort and the fear, especially when the war was approaching. There were conversations in the house where I felt like

well we're talking slightly positively about possibly getting rid of sudden, but of course I knew that I wasn't supposed to say anything about it. I do remember things worse cars because we had sanctions imposed on us. For instance, bananas were not easy to approach and they were after the war. But I dont know why, Then you are so young just seven when the invasion happen, but bow. Some are other guessed. You were twenty one If I went to ancient have really detailed recollections of the day. The invasion take us through your memories. It is detailed by the same time, it's very hard, sometimes to recall the details, and I think this is how we tend to like he'll our scars left by legacy of wars.

An invasion and economic sanctions. So sometimes is treaty hard to collect all those pieces and put them together growing up in Baghdad. before the invasion. I was a eighteen. In the nineties, so maybe that was one reason why I knew that saddam Hussein. I was aware that he was a dictator and I is aware of his brutality I heard my parents talking about him negatively also we knew that we had boundaries and we knew that we could lose our lives if we ever dared to say something bad about him at schools, for instance. However, I had some the strategies or tactics resistance. So, for instance, every morning at school we used to sing the national land them, and then we used to say something like long lips, saddam hussein and then

everyone would need to clap their hands. I would not do that. So the stump, simple things keeping silence. Sometimes these were my way. His of UNICEF thinks resisting saddam Hussein. I was dreaming. the day that you now there would be alive and iraq without saddam Hussein with the war without foreign, of course intervention, but when, was inevitable. I thought that may be other could be an opportunity for iraqis to rebuild. The country was like her sat a sense of optimism, but that about the right to the quick lee after the invasion just a few days before the invasion took place. Many, Families in Iraq decided to leave, but not leave outside Iraq, because that was not an option. We were isolated from the rest of the world and they did this year, that ninety ninety one gulf war, but my family,

want to leave, because if anything happened then it would be better for us to die together. We A big family saw my parents, I have three sisters and two younger brothers. We all estate in one room in the living room, and it was horrific because the bombing and the sound of the explosions was very intense and severe at only lasted for less than a month. I think when Saddam Hussein was finally toppled by some, how do you process your own memories? I approach that's my memories, sometimes by bring them by don't share everything. Sometimes I force myself into forgetting some really bad memories. That, with a trauma, ties me even further. If I have you know, if I want to talk about them all right about them, I just with keep them to myself

I think I'm not ready yet to share every single details about what happened after the invasion, but maybe in the future. I will be brief. and I will be more ready and prepared to talk about them to think that day will come. I think we have to talk because the rocky voices have been marginalized and people had been listening from others from officials from mom, decisions, but not from iraqis, and I think it's really important that we show our stories and our experiences is just about enough finding the right time and the right moment- and this differs from one person to another. Only today, reading a very powerful personal account by my friend pressure lackey, who is also an iraqi writer and I was crying and I had a choice. With her. I told her. You opens really many wounds and this cause

I admire you for being a brave and being able to share them. There are still some memories. I can't talk about, I dont know and while this happen by told her may be on the twenty fifth anniversary, I be more ready, yelled, youth use, poetry as a way of her. Can you through the process, are their similiar? These with bosoms experience that there are some memories which are too hard to talk about. I totally understand what he sang, but to me, I've force myself to write down I'm working on a novel about that different wars that happened in iraq during the nineties in until two thousand and ten, and there are a lot of scenes that I work on and they just hurt so might just riding them feels so heavy and

raining, but at the same time like she said, the iraqi voices have been marginalized. Weary number is about how many people were killed about what happened just the logistics of it, and this I believe they humanizes the iraqi individual experience and I find writing and hopefully publish him and the future to be a very, very important thing to do, because I want to give a voices to us the people who suffered. I want the world to see their suffering and to feel it

so it is very hard sometimes to write some things and to be solved one rebel and to share specially I'm in the. U alice- and I share with me at my american gear- is knowing that they try to sympathise, but they dont, particularly under tanned. Emotionally they data and to lecture willie, understand experience, but emotionally that's quite impossible. If you don't live in it,

you dont, you cannot imagine what a bombing sounds like goes right. Luck at its powerful is generating when a house shakes and one windows break and when you feel like you're, ear drawings are being pierce, and we feel the vibration of the sound in your body nor lungs. That feeling is hard to describe, as it is hard to be understood through description, and that is difficult. That makes it more difficult for me when I share my experiences, because I hear a lot of things, knowing that their difficult could be understood by the people will not experience them like, for instance, after the war there was no extra city in Iraq and we slept on rooftops and the summers and because it was very hot inside the houses, and there were constantly there were american helicopters.

in the skies and once a helicopter had landed on our roof, while we were sleeping there, I was I dunno nine ten and the sound was so loud, and you know the helicopter blades are spinning and making this roaring winds and our covers would just fly, and that was a quiet, traumatic experience for me and now years after that incident, I still have a flashback whenever I see a helicopter or hear a helicopter. Writing is very important but, as she said, it is very difficult to express everything and it is especially difficult when you feel you're not being understood person. You can understand that yeah. I mean your question about the sound of bombing. The first time I had a bomb was in the eighties,

quite young. I think I was four years old and I still remember this. There was an explosion. It was a very close to where, we lived or actually we were visiting their relatives house and I think there was like an attack on a school or something like that. So I panicked by I dont know how to describe the feeling. I know how I felt years later during the ninety ninety ones, war. When the war started, I woke up and I was shaking we say we would normally faint iraq body shake like like like poetry, my dad was holding my body and trying to comfort me and just he was so scared, because I'm a shaking. You know that, lots of fireworks james and the united kingdom there are so every sound it with a startled me and

with panic me, although I love fireworks, but especially because my daughter's love them and fortunately for them they dont have those are traumas. Our memories saw like mixed feelings about them, because on one hand I hate them because they remind me of the sound of bombings. Only the hands. I know their purpose is to unite us to celebrate things in us, I agree with you yeah, that's very hard, sometimes to explain all of these things one who hasn't experience them. If you feel that they can't relate threatened. To communicate your feelings and your bodily experience absolutely, and I have exactly the same experience with fireworks actually yeah last year. I want your fireworks show for the very first time the united states independence celebration, I dont remember every one was excited and then the fireman started an

then there was a war as well yeah. This is a celebration and then, at the same time, I could not separate that from imagining that these were bullets in the sky and yes, I am going to die, it was was very, very traumatic and I just thought. I won't do this again. Are you actually it's in your opening scene of my novel, I'm so sorry we ve been experiencing this, but at the same time so glad to hear this from you because you're the first person expressing this I think that I have actually actually that's the first time I experience it was when I came to the uk and twenty. Tea in and I state I was visiting actually an iraqi friend, and that was the very first time I heard about fireworks and yeah, I was shake. and then she told me not allowed on, don't worry it's just fireworks. We all felt the same footing

this time. We had them until we knew its fireworks. You both living in exile, yelled in the united states in belgium here in the u k, whereas home Oh, this is a very, very difficult question that I ask myself. I dare say multiple times every week. It is hard I feel scattered a home is a concept that is really unknown to me, because I can consider that you asked to be home despite the fact that there is more peace here I walk freely as a

I'm, not afraid that I would be assaulted or something by any milk year by anyone. There is a lot of good things about like infrastructure of care like the logistics of it, but at the same time I didn't feel home because I'm your friend I don't hear the culture, I don't share the food, I'm just not the same. I always feel alienated constantly, and it is also very very hard to be in iraq and not feel like on home, because I feel unsafe. I've never felt safe in Iraq really so I don't feel like a belong anywhere and about is a struggle of mine, but I've been trying to explore and press through my writings and I'm still looking for home.

that question regime's has touched me. If we look back to twenty nineteen one, the biggest protest movement erupted in Iraq. We call it that a shriek uprisings and a shriek translates into october. The main slogan of the protest, was red weapon and then read what then translate Do we want a homeland or we won't. Want a country so imagine living in your home country, but you still don't feel like you about this We're home- and this is a powerful, because the idea of home is not just a place. The place where you have your dignity as the decision you have there your rights, and the fundamental, really very basic rights, and when all of this is lost start asking yourself, whereas home so for me, I started to reconstruct this concept and reconstruction.

Is it so home? For me now is more abstract than a concrete entity. It's something that about you know a good memories. The good people and also about the feeling of safety So that's why I belong to unimagined iraq and, at the same time I believe, here too the uk, because in the uk this is where, like the elder has said, I feel safer, and I feel that you know my basic rights are claimed. so this is home, for me, too, can be anywhere and can be nowhere at the same time by some stuff are here in the uk and the other on a in the? U s, they were both born in Iraq. They now live abroad and they made their. Surely so many powerful and poignant points as you can hear their both still coming to terms with the trauma of the invasion two decades on were grateful for their time. We all

I wanted to get a glimpse of life inside Iraq. Our international editor jeremy bone was in the country this week. He said it's more stable so far this year than it has been for a long while, but public anger remains. There have been demonstrations about issues such as poverty, corruption and the country's failing infrastructure. Let me introduce to you yes, king Hussein, Ali who was just eleven. When the invasion began. He's thirty one. He lives in baghdad and asthma. Khaled is twenty six. She lives in the northern city of Mosul. She works as an eighty instruct.

I graduated three years ago were started to like doing some jobs you in there and now I'm an instructor at an organization, a helping pink, newly graduate people where they don't have the the you acquired the skills to get a job. You know may be an english and id skills and computers, because what we actually having heal right now is completely like corrupted and an efficient education system where you can like graduate and have like a degree. But when you come we'll lies and try to find a job. You will have another indifferent, quite serious. You didn't actually get to join europe for years for studying a college, so

we are actually trying to haul peace to get the skills that they need in order to maybe open their own star talk or maybe get a job at an organization or company, and we are having a lot of success stories, but truly whatever you do, you at some point- and you see like I would actually creating an impact like we don't have a fully functioning hospital eating one fully functioning hospital. Half hospitals are not enough college is not enough. However, words are not enough- we don't have Why can't a fully functioning like health system education system even to the streets? The the roads that actually supposed to take like a fifteen to twenty minutes, took a fourteen minutes because of the destroyed and damaged streets were the sun dating basis. Yes, in baghdad- the capital destroy your life similar to

mistaken about her life, and actually yesterday I was demonstrating you growers will use data, people have a maybe we have fifty. Find a job draw, so they what they did Before tumult looks more like six month they thought we have forms. We gonna give people you do have jobs, but not all people To actually like you know, for this forms, also we have pupil after months of six months, I graduated also they asked them. They have created a bit like we can't feel my voice is not well because I was shouting I should just like to tell them guys. Would we need they should do open form new forest. Was there police they actually sometimes they were terrifying, as they were in sight for the truly go your homes are. We gonna do something back to your guys. They produce go on. It was a really bad.

It is really hard to new york, sometimes leader they stay the whole day. There are no like Alice to them; sometimes they forced them to govern come back home. This is what opening up later the? U s I'd invasion was twenty years ago, which, for both of you is, is of your lives, bent in the aftermath of of invasion and asthma in Mosul. Have you ever had? here it in your life in which things normal in which you get up you see friends, go to the park and there isn't that backdrop of my and instability have you ever had. That means three years, we're having like a very secure city. It's good we're! Not missing a war crimes

We spent the last seventeen years of our lives in a war and a continuous work. I know someone, they say like the: u s, invasion ended something between two thousand and nine and two thousand and eleven, but they left andrei fragile country that can be invaded by anyone so easily. They left the country will All military forces no secured border is no trusted government. So that's what light the boy and the ices were in two thousand and fourteen were in need of our not morsel minafer, entirely ways invaded by ices and then you have on barring continue greece. A governors were entirely invaded by ices and then edison view what happened in emotional, specifically, the liberation battles. Where

full horrifying, very severe. It destroyed the city to the ground. It burned everything to the crowd. You know I don't Anyone witnessed structural war, then I took away for the people to get to the life, giving themselves together back and you know just start having kind an arm alive. But what about the destroy city, one about the damaged, treats the universities to hospitals, schools, so actually we don't have a park, they are trying. to build like one hour to look after twenty twenty, but young. The city still needs a lot. So actually, I think considering what we ve been through. We can say that this is a normal life. We are having the best day so far, but here too so one of the worst countries. Try world.

Actually work was one of the best country is, one of them may be top ten countries with the health system, education system, with the development and everything we had at that time, where so many countries do not have even the smallest thing that we had at that time in actual war, its actual matters, consequences that we are still suffering so far, so yeah? I'm also now is secure its trying to rebuild bite. Take away shares to have a normal life again, half a horse It is not enough. Half a school is not enough. Such a vivid picture that and it's worth remembering that iraq used to have hospitals and schools that were highly highly regarded across the Middle EAST. Our thanks, then as my colleague in Mosul, an yes in her saying in baghdad for sharing some of the many challenges and difficulties they continue to experience.

danger reynolds and you ve been listening to the documentary from the BBC world service on conversations with iraqis when you If someone online, can you trust they are they say they are just that they interact with. Despite some I keep thinking so much about you left your nasa, a true crime, podcast from the BBC world service and cbc podcast invested. In the murky world of online romance scams. It's all well planned, She said if you really loved, do what I asked you to catch up with the whole series now search for love to nasa We found this cod cost. the.

The twenty ninth of July nineteen, eighty one prince Charles marries, lady Diana spencer and eight year old boy, watches a fairy tale unfold. An hour later he's missing. Then one day in twenty twenty, a bbc reporter gets a call from a mysterious source visual, the extraordinary true story of a boy who went missing while the world looked the other way all lives are not created. The same listened to visual.