A graveyard of martyrs, orphans brought up by militia and the tears of mourners who wont forget. These are the relics of hate and revenge that hide behind the city’s 12ft walls. Armed with duplicate ID’s, chutzpah and the memories of Baghdad from his childhood, our journalist takes an intimate look at the city from 2003 to today- is Baghdad more divided and desperate than ever?

‘Only killers and the killed ever come here’ says our guide. We’re on the edge of Sadr city where almost 3000 sectarian murders have taken place over the last 3 years. As the sun sets on this rubbish tip of corpses one elderly man remains. ‘This is my son Omer’ he says gesturing to a headstone made from junk-metal ‘his best friend Ali lured him to Qahira and sold him to militias’. Ali was a Shia and Omer a Sunni. Where once Iraqi children had no idea who was Sunni or Shia, the walls have made it mortally apparent. Childhood friends are now turning against each other. The scars of civil war remain.

‘Baghdad is like a woman who has rediscovered her make-up’ says one Iraqi. The city is being rebuilt: in the news we hear of the resurgence of art and literature. Old men sing songs in the street like they used to: but their eyes are full of sadness and hate.. ‘It’s like a prison here’ one young Sunni cried in 2003 ‘beyond the checkpoint they will kill us’. Today, there are the same arm guarded check points. But the killings are in secret.‘There is no improvement!’ says one grief-stricken mother ‘they organise proxy killings now’.. ‘It’s worse than Palestine here’ confesses our taxi driver ‘no one is telling the truth’.

Iraqis can now travel between Sunni and Shia areas but they choose to remain in sectarian neighbourhoods. Concrete cages have been the incubators of ignorance and misunderstanding. ‘I myself am ready to be a suicide bomber’ says one young Shia in 2009. Whilst many believe ‘it’s easy for the walls to come down now the Americans are leaving’’, they’ve been built into the minds of a whole new generation of Iraqis.

‘Do you know the meaning of the word 'enemy'?’ a teacher asks in Hollywood-flavoured English. ‘Amreeka!’ a student shouts referring to America. He’s one of many young Irakis brought to this orphanage run by Moqtadr al Sadr’s militia. The children are well fed, well cared for and their heartbreaking tales of loss are transformed into radical, anti-western ideology. ‘Someone threw a disc of fire at our house’ relates 7 year old Anmar, his hands shaking, ‘the Americans are going to kill me’.

Anmar has never played with a Sunni boy. When he comes to sit his baccalaureate, the militiamen will write the answers on the board. ‘No one can stop them’ says one teacher. What will happen when the walls come down and this generation born into sectarian violence, with ignorant extremists for heroes, grows up?