Samawa

Bombers killed an Iraqi provincial governor on Monday — the second assassinated in two weeks — amid mounting tension between rival Shi’ite armed factions in Iraq’s southern cities. Both governors were members of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, one of Iraq’s most powerful parties and a bitter rival of another Shi’ite movement.

In the children’s ward at the Samawa hospital in Iraq, the stench of dried sweat and raw waste is almost unbearable. Mothers, dressed head to foot in black robes, sit cross-legged on the floor or beds, cradling children as many drift slowly into death. ”We have nothing. Most children die, especially in winter,” said a junior doctor.