Baghdad (AFP)
At the sound, Majed Abdennour seems to play the lute. But on approaching, the odd instrument of this inhabitant of Baghdad, ravaged by violence, unusual outlines: his neck is a Kalashnikov and sound box, a box of ammunition.
In his fifties, this Iraqi musician, who became a teacher to provide for his family, was fed up with violence.
He himself admitted to having a weapon at home "to protect himself" during the worst years of confessional violence in Iraq.
Between 2006 and 2008, extremist militias and Islamists were law in Baghdad. Sunni and Shiite Muslims then retreated behind high walls between neighborhoods of different faiths.
"All of a sudden, it's as if all the links that we had woven did not count anymore, Iraq became an enormous battlefield, the war was everywhere", recalls the one who lost several cousins and friends in bombings.
In all, according to the Iraq Body Count, more than 100,000 civilians were killed in Iraq between the US-led invasion in 2003 and the withdrawal of US troops in 2011.
"I said to myself: why the war? Why violence? I'm going to turn all this into music +," says the man, white hair and chiseled face, caressing the strings of his rifle-lute.
When he brought his Kalashnikov and his ammunition box to an ironmonger, he told him: "what do you want to do with it?", He says laughing at AFP. "I told him: + do not ask questions, do it! +".
"And I'm sure he took me for a madman," he concludes, before resuming his melody on his lute rifle.
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