Little Zahra in Bagdad

Four-month-old Zahra is for sale. On a bed in a corner of Pepsi’s abandoned premises in central Baghdad, Soheilai, Zahra’s mother, has decided to sell her. Otherwise they both risk starvation. A couple has offered to buy Zahra and during weeks of negotiations the price rises. It’s finally decided that they will buy her for 1,000 dollars. A week later Zahra is dead. She caught a cold and her mother took her to the hospital. But the hospital didn’t have oxygen and Zahra died from asphyxiation. The couple about to buy her was not prepared to help out. Text by: Terese Christiansson