Optimism over Baghdad

Children playing at a promenade by the Tigris River and Abu Nawas park in Baghdad, Iraq. — Reuters

LIVING in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City suburb for the past 15 years, Khodr Abbas, 73, had to walk along a mud and dirt track to get to his home, where he would struggle to get fresh water to flow and waste-water to flush through rickety pipes.That finally changed last month.

Diggers, bulldozers and other heavy equipment arrived and ripped up ground to lay sewage and water systems that were then topped with fresh tarmac roads and lined with neat pavements.