"Liberation" and its Reality

Photograph by Paolo Pellegrin. Aperture Magazine, spring 2010, issue 198.

Saba is the name of the girl in this photograph. She went to university in Baghdad until a gunman shot the driver of her car in the head. He then shot Saba in the chest at point blank range immediately severing her spinal cord. She was instantly paralyzed, but some how managed to call her parents for help on her cell phone. She went to several hospitals, but no one would treat her. Now she lays in a bed in a friends apartment afraid that the gunman that shot her will find and kill her. This is the reality of what the American government has deemed the "liberation" of Iraq.