Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don't come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.
The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year's dire shortages in fresh water flows from the Tigris River.
