An Iraqi girl displaced from her home waits in line with her mother for aid in Baghdad's Sadr City.
Karima Rasool Ridha looks older than her 40 years, but it's not surprising, given the life she's leading.
Karima used to have a house in Baghdad, a comparatively comfortable existence. That ended when masked men came, telling her to leave her home and everything in it or she and her son would die.
Karima is now one of an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis forced from their homes by their country's sectarian bloodletting. Last year, reports say, up to a thousand people fled their own homes every single day. Karima is Shia, forced out by Sunni extremists. But it works both ways: Shia also force Sunni to run for their lives.
Many move in with family members in already crowded houses. Others leave the country, if they can afford it. People like Karima end up in so-called "camps for internally displaced persons." It's a bureaucratic term for what are actually quite chilling places.
Karima's new home is a filthy, sewage and garbage-ridden plot of land she shares with dozens of other families. Her 16-year-old son does little during the day, as there's no school, no work, and little safety outside their fetid enclosure.
Iraq's prime minister has promised to help people get back to their homes, their old communities. But the stark reality on the ground is that people like Karima won't go.
"I don't trust his words. I don't believe it," she says. "There's no safety in going back."
