Today, a shower is a dream. Or that the electricity supply continues just that little bit longer.

“These needs are very trivial for people of other countries,” 43-year-old political leader Saad Tahir told Inter Press Service (IPS). “But in Iraq, people dream more of these things than of some ambition or success.”

Abdullah Mahdi, a retired 51-year-old trader, says he dreams only of electricity.

“Like millions here, I hope supply gets better to help us to sleep in this hot summer,” Mahdi told IPS. “We have been suffering from this problem since the 1991 Kuwait war, and this current occupation only made things worse.”

Others dream of freedom of movement. “I dream of traveling among the Iraqi provinces freely and safely,” a local resident said. “For more than two years now, I have not travelled to any province of my country.” Lack of security means Iraqis can rarely travel even to a neighbouring area.

Children also seem to have begun to dream differently.

“I dream of a playground in which I and my friends can play freely and at any time,” 11-year-old Luay Amjad told IPS. Children are not allowed to play just anywhere for fear of unexploded bombs, haphazard firing, and a general fear of the Iraqi military. Many children in Baquba and other districts of Diyala province have been kidnapped.

“All families wish to see their children safe, and then enjoying their time,” said a young father. “We know that they currently live in a very closed world. But we put pressure on our children for their own safety. Streets are dangerous, and even gardens may sometimes be dangerous.”

Others dream of a functioning economy. According to the ministry of trade, unemployment has been vacillating between 40-70 percent over the last two years.

“I hope that the trade and economic process will improve,” said an unemployed trader. “I wish Iraq could be an industrial country with a flourishing and luxurious status of living. I want to get back to my shop and have my own customers.”

Teachers dream of an Iraq that can be a center for education again. “Iraq was one of the countries that paid great attention to education,” a university professor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “Now, breaking the rules of schools is very common, and fake certificates are spread widely all over the country. We dream of a rigorous and successful educational process.”

Farmers simply dream of water, and the security necessary to work in their fields. “I hope I can work on my farm again, and have water to irrigate all the land,” said a local vegetable farmer.

A cleric spoke of bigger dreams. “I dream that all Iraqis will love each other again, as we used to in the past days. We miss hope, a smile, and true love. We hope that cooperation prevails again among people. We hope for killing and displacement to end forever in this once peaceful country. We hope that the sectarian discrimination disappears.”

A political analyst said he dreams of an end to the occupation. “The occupation is the source of all the problems of our people. I do dream of the end of the occupation — no more arrests, no more prison for simple and poor people, and no more suffering.”

The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the US invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.

But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased nine percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.

A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a population of about 25 million.

According to a UN Children’s Fund report released this month, “at least two million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Programme assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other threats including interrupted education, lack of immunisation services and diarrhoea diseases.”

Inter Press Service interviewed three children from different districts of Baquba, the capital city of Iraq’s volatile Diyala province, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

Firas Muhsin is seven, and lives in Baquba with his mother. His father was killed two years ago by militants who shot him in his shop.

Firas attends school four hours every day near his house. On rare occasions he gets to play with neighbours’ children, but always under the eyes of his mother.

Firas is allowed to move no more than ten metres from the house; his mother is afraid of strangers. Kidnapping of Iraqi children is common now, and many are believed to have been sold as child labourers or as sex workers.

Iraqi officials and aid workers have recently expressed concern over the alarming rate at which children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq’s unstable environment.

Omar Khalif is vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO established in 2004 to register cases of the missing and trafficked. He told reporters in January that on average at least two Iraqi children are sold by their parents every week. In addition, another four are reported missing every week.

“The numbers are alarming,” Khalif said. “There is an increase of 20 percent in the reported cases of missing children over a year.”

Firas spends hours each day sitting at the door looking at people. The door is his only outlet. In the afternoon, his mother calls him inside to do his homework. After dinner, his big hope is to watch cartoons — if there is electricity from their private generator.

The mother faces a shortage of kerosene needed just for heating. “My children feel cold and I cannot afford kerosene,” she told IPS.

Many children Firas’s age do not get to school at all. According to the UN, 17 percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school, and an estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their families have been displaced. That adds up to 760,000 children out of primary school in 2006.

These are in-country figures, and do not include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to other countries. UNHCR estimates that at least 2.25 million Iraqis have fled their country.

Qusay Ameen is five, and lives with his mother, father, two sisters and a brother. His father was a sergeant in the former military, and is now unemployed. He receives a monthly pension of 110 dollars. He tries to support the family by selling cigarettes on the roadside. Qusay’s mother is a housekeeper. Qusay hopes to begin school next year when he turns six.

After breakfast, always something simple like fried tomato with bread, Qusay wants to play, but he has nothing to play with but a small broken plastic car his brother found near the neighbour’s door. He spends most of the morning playing with this car. He seems happiest when he gets to visit his neighbour’s house, because they have a swing in the garden.

Like most Iraqi children now, Qusay has grown used to being in need. He rarely gets sweets, or new clothes.

The family house is incredibly small — one bedroom and a place used as both kitchen and bathroom. Everyone sleeps in one room, which is extremely cold through the winter months. There are not enough beds or covering, and everyone has to sleep close together for warmth.

The house has few basic necessities, and of course no television or useful household appliances. There is a small kerosene cooker used for both cooking and heating.

According to the UN Children’s Fund, only 40 percent of children nationwide have access to safe drinking water, and only 20 percent of people outside Baghdad have a working sewerage service. About 75,000 children are among families living in temporary shelters.

Ali Mahmood, 6, has lived with his uncle in Baquba after his parents were killed by a mortar explosion two years ago in random shelling by militants. Next year he will join primary school near his uncle’s house.

Ali’s days are alike, and quiet. His only friends are his uncle’s children. When they go to school, he simply spends his time alone. It does seem the uncle’s family is not able to look after him as well as his own might have. His uncle Thamir is doing his best, but life is difficult, and Thamir has responsibility for a big family.

Ali is deprived of just about everything in childhood; he has no place to play, or things to play with. And he has nobody to think of his future.

And already, he has responsibilities waiting; he has been told he must take care of his younger brother when he grows up.

Firas, Qusay and Ali are all children, but none the way children should be.