Click to play videoBaghdad: The temperature has cooled in Baghdad and the lightning has brought in rain. With the change in weather comes a new school year - at least for some.
An elementary school in Baghdad is opening its doors again, but its pupils lives have been stunted by war.
Says a student Mawj Nouman, "No, we cannot go outside because it is not safe and the situation is not so good."
One cannot stop children from playing - whatever their surroundings, and some children still have the dreams of the innocent.
"I have hope and if God wills, things will get better in Iraq. A time will come when there will be no explosions and no discrimination," says another student.
Others though seem old beyond their years, with opinions formed by three years of relentless violence.
Another student adds, "I have no hope that Iraq will be safe again. Only when Americans leave Iraq will everything get better."
Despite their memories, these children are fortunate. Fewer and fewer Iraqi kids are getting to school, because of roadblocks, or because their parents fear they will be kidnapped.
Teachers, like many Iraqi professionals, are fleeing the country if they can afford to. Wealthy parents are sending their older children abroad for a college education.
However, across iraq and especially around Baghdad, many children have no hope of school. For 100,000 children displaced by sectarian violence - according to the Iraqi Red Cresent - and living in camps, life is different.
Says President, Iraqi Red Crescent Society, Dr Said-i-Hakki, "They left their schools, their work and they all of a sudden move to a foreign neighborhood and they are living in a camp, instead of a house."
From Baghdad, to the triangle of death, from Fallujah, to Mosul in the north, Iraq's youngest are touched by violence and suspicion - even the spontaneous freedoms of childhood are stifled here.
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