Hugh Sykes in Iraq.
You may have heard Hugh in Basra this week on PM, as well as Today, the World Service or 5Live. Here are some of the things he saw and people he met, accompanied by his captions:
"Floating restaurant on the Corniche
On deck at dusk
City centre
Take my picture too! Thanks!
Yes, that is what you could see in the background in those two photographs.
The Venice of the East has lost its romance, and gained a dangerous level of pollution.
Out shopping with Mum.
Market-stall, central Basra. "Welcome!" she said, in English.
Moktada al Sadr supporters in the market.
Police at the Courts of Justice.
Lawyers and a client at the court.
In Basra bookshop and newsagents.
Find this man! Hassan was last seen in a coffee shop six years ago, bringing me a hubble-bubble to smoke.
I found him, working across the road in a shop. He said I'd promised to bring him the photo -"but I didn't think it would take six years!"
Polishing the British war memorial at the base in the desert which is now under US authority. 179 British dead since 2003. At least 3,500 Iraqi civilians have also died in the southern areas under British control. They have no memorial.
This dear little girl, Um al Benin, stepped into the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ hire-van and looked around, and put on my headphones and listened to part of a poetry recital I'd recorded at the weekend at a Basra arts festival. At one point, the poet referred to the Shatt al Arab. Um al Benin pointed down the street, and said "The Shatt al Arab is down there"."
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