OUTSIDE AL-QAIM, Iraq (Reuters) – At a bare concrete building on the western edge of Iraq, hundreds of Syrian refugee families wait in the shade, anxious to find out where they will spend the night after fleeing their homeland.

Many of the men, women and children had come from the Syrian town of Albu Kamal and said Syrian rebel forces escorted them on the 7 km (4 miles) road to the main border gate with Iraq.

AL-WALEED, Iraq (Reuters) – They fled sectarian violence in Iraq years ago but are now desperately trying to get back – crammed into buses, trucks and cars out of Syria, once their safe haven, now descending into civil war.

At a desert border crossing, 560 km (350 miles) west of Baghdad, hundreds of Iraqi men, women and children arrived exhausted in the baking sun, back in the homeland they thought they had left behind.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – As Baghdad burned, Iraqi artist Qasim Sabti headed for one of the places he loved the most – the Academy of Fine Arts – only to find thousands of its books and archives on fire.

It was April 2003 and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, begun in March, had reached the capital.