Ghareeb

I'm overjoyed that a friend in Baghdad has just sent me a photo of Ghareeb, my friend who was killed on 20th August returning from delivering medicines to Najaf and protecting Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni. I gave Ghareeb my camera when I left on 10th August, and he was killed before he had a chance to email me the photos I'd taken, so I had nothing to remember him by until this photo arrived.

The photo shows Ghareeb with me and another friend (who's face has been blacked out for his own protection). It's hard to believe that this fun evening in Baghdad, discussing very serious things and yet also joking about, was only a month ago. A few days after this photo was taken Enzo Baldoni had arrived and we had another fun evening in the same splace. Today I'm going to be having another evening mixing the serious and the jovial - you need to hang onto both to stay human. I'm meeting two of Ghareeb's closest friends and we're going to think about ways of commemorating him and carrying on his humanitarian work through starting a charitable foundation in his honour.