The signs of anticipation take shape upon her face as 26-year-old Alia feels her heart begin to race with anxiety. She stands in front of the television watching a speech by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from March 7 on the occasion of International Women’s Day. She listens to him say “sectarian war is at the gates, and it won’t spare anyone this time.” Iraq is undergoing a state of instability, and danger is creeping toward the country, he added.

Alia lives with her husband in the Sunni-majority region of al-Amiriyyah, adjacent to al-Karakh in Baghdad. She had not finished listening to Maliki’s speech when the memories of the sectarian violence she and her family had endured from 2006 to 2008 came flooding back. Alia says that “for many long months I was unable to see my sick, bed-ridden father or my brothers. They’re Shiites, and live on Palestine Street on the al-Risafah side [the other half of Baghdad].”

She adds: “Even after the sectarian violence started to decrease, communicating with my family is still very nerve-wracking for me.”

The path Alia takes to visit her family is not devoid of strangeness. As she puts it, “My husband has to take me to the region of Bab al-Muazzim (north-central Baghdad, considered one of the links connecting the regions of al-Amiriyyah and Palestine street). Then my brother comes to accompany me the rest of the way to my family’s house; the trip back is much the same.”