People gather for the second annual “Cat Beauty Festival” organized by Royal Veterinary Hospital in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq on July 2, 2025. Around 200 cats participated in the event, where the first round was determined by social media votes. The winner, a cat named “Gule Rana”, was selected by a jury. The festival aims to promote animal love and raise awareness about feline care. (Photo by Fariq Faraj Mahmood/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A Sunni Muslim child plays in the rain as she arrives for Eid al-Fitr prayers at the shrine of cleric Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Gailani in Baghdad, Iraq on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)

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)

A colorful drawing is seen on a wall in Baghdad, Iraq on October 24, 2021. A group of volunteer painters tries to give hope and joy to the Iraqi residents by painting colorful murals on the walls of the houses and streets of the city, tired of violance. Seve-member group named “Butterfly Effect” is busy in drawing paintings to depict life in Baghdad and its cultural heritage on the buildings (Photo by Murtadha Al-Sudani/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A child sleeps inside a makeshift hammock made of a saree which is a tradition Indian costume worn by women, along a road in New Delhi on August 19, 2021. (Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP Photo)

A woman spends her time outdoors to observe the ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar, an annual public picnic day on the 13th day of the Iranian new year, at the Tochal mountainous area northern Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April, 2, 2017. Sizdeh Bedar, which comes from the Farsi words for “thirteen” and “day out”, is a legacy from Iran's pre-Islamic past that hard-liners in the Islamic Republic never managed to erase from calendars. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Young dancers perform in a ballet adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland” during the Baghdad Ballet Academy's annual gala at Rasheed Theatre in Baghdad on August 29, 2025. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

A picture taken on April 27, 2021, shows the electrical wires running between homes in the capital Baghdad's Murabaa neighbourhood. Between January and March alone, the interior ministry recorded 7,000 fires, the deadliest of which erupted on Sunday in a Covid-19 hospital in Baghdad. Eighty-two people died and 100 others were injured in the inferno, which sparked shock and outrage in the country. Baghdad, a sprawling metropolis of 10 million people, has the tragic distinction of being the Iraqi city hit by the most fires every year. (Photo by Sabah Arar/AFP Photo)