Life remains miserable for Iraqis as US troops withdraw

Kareem Hassan Abboud’s family of seven share a two-room house in a makeshift squatter camp in the mainly Shi’ite district of Chukook in north-western Baghdad. Sewage muddies the dirt road outside.

The 59-year-old fisherman and his family were forced to move there four years ago when sectarian violence between majority Shi’ites and once dominant Sunnis raged in Iraq, set off by the 2003 US-led invasion to oust Saddam.

As US combat operations come to a close today, seven and a half years later, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis like Abboud, who fled mixed-sect neighbourhoods as bodies piled up in the street, are living in squalor.