A child runs towards Mohamed Maarouf, 28, as he walks with a sack of gifts while dressed in Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) costume in a slum near the centre of Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 24, 2021. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

Civilians present their rations cards in order to receive humanitarian food aid being distributed by the Iraqi Red Crescent, in the eastern side of Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, January 31, 2017. Iraqi forces declared Mosul's eastern half fully liberated, just over three months after the operation to retake the city from IS was formally launched in October. (Photo by Khalid Mohammed/AP Photo)

Vian Salman, center, smiles with fellow contestants after she was crowned the new Miss Iraq during the Miss Iraq contest in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, May 25, 2017. (Photo by Karim Kadim/AP Photo)

Shiite Muslim devotees reach to receive a blessing from the tomb of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, at the Imam's shrine in Iraq's central holy city of Karbala on September 6, 2023, during the Arbaeen religious festival commemorating his seventh century killing. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

Female Kurdish Peshmerga fighters affiliated with Iran's separatist Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), are pictured at a base in an undisclosed location in the Arbil province, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on December 1, 2022. Iranian-Kurdish rebel groups have for decades sought refuge in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, but they have recently come under fresh fire amid weeks of protests in the neighbouring Islamic republic. (Photo by Safin Hamed/AFP Photo)

Students of the Ballet Academy prepare to perform during the school annual ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, April 1, 2022. (Photo by Hadi Mizban/AP Photo)

An Iraqi camel herder poses in the desert of Samawa in Iraq's southern province of al-Muthanna on January 27, 2024. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

This aerial view shows youths swimming to cool off in the waters of Iraq's Euphrates river during a heatwave, in the district of al-Hindiyah east of Karbala on June 7, 2024. (Photo by Karar Jabbar/AFP Photo)