Journalist Asma Obeid on the terrors of the sectarian war, enforced exile, and her brother's new life in Canada
Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
The Guardian The Observer, Sunday 17 March 2013
Asma Obeid was working for the newspaper Zaman when I first met her in 2004. When I go to their new offices today I find she no longer works there. In a country defined by fear her old boss is at first reluctant to give me her number; when he does, I discover she is now working for a television station run by the ministry of higher education
Asma is waiting at the entrance. "So many things have happened since we last met," she says. We head upstairs to her office where she locks the door to keep out curious colleagues. "The hardest years," she explains, like everyone, "were during the sectarian war. I was among those who fled to Syria and lived there for three years"
