"I have two sisters and seven brothers who live in Baghdad with their many children. I know nothing about them," Kazem al-Saher said here Friday, wearing a black T-shirt, unshaven and with rings under his eyes from lack of sleep.

"I remain glued in front of the television, petrified that I may see one of them among the dead or wounded," he said, holding back tears.

The singer said neither he nor his mother, who lives with him in Egypt since the death of his father, have been able to contact their relatives for the past two weeks because of the bombings, which have damaged Iraq's telephone network.

"My fear for my family does not mean I don't worry for all my fellow Iraqis," said Saher, guest of honour at a gathering of Egyptian artists in solidarity with the Iraqi people under the bombs.

"Iraq and the Iraqi people have gone through long years of suffering and long years of war and sanctions," said the singer, who has been based in Egypt for the past eight years.

"We were waiting to be rescued, but it was death which came," he said.

Sitting on a platform next to an Iraqi flag, he stood up to sing his new song, "Baghdad Don't Grieve," written by Egyptian poet Faruq Goweida.

"The children of Baghdad, the sad one, ask why are they being killed?" he sang. "Baghdad don't grieve, Allah is greater than the tyrants of war and greater than the merchants of blood."

SPACE.WIRE