The school, adorned with statues posed in the style of classic figurines in a garden, was home to 3,000 students and scene of numerous theatre productions and concerts before Iraqi soldiers occupied it at the start of the war.

Soldiers' boots, berets carrying the eagle insignia of Saddam Hussein's regime and uniforms lie abandoned in the garden, such was the haste of their departure from the school under the onslaught from the US-led coalition.

The looters swiftly followed, ransacking the place before they too fled.

"We do not want the story of this crime to finish here. This is an artistic place. It's the home of all Iraqi actors and artists," Rashid says, making his way through the ruins.

"I beg UNESCO to help us repair this damage," Rashid says, referring to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The cinema room, the painting studio, the instruments room: everything has disappeared and the little the looter couldn't or didn't want to take has been turned into ashes.

"A horrible nightmare," Rashid says, surrounded by 15 teachers who turned up for work on Monday in vain.

"We cannot start classes like this, without tables, chairs and no material. Anyway, the students do not want to come to study. They're afraid and, certainly, there are other concerns during these times in Iraq."

The school's archives centre, with the diplomas and registrations of all the students have been destroyed.

"Without them, nobody will be able to check on who has graduated from this school in recent years. All this centre's history has been reduced to ashes," Rashid laments.

At his side, Heizem Abdurazay Ali, one of Iraq's most famous television and theatre actors looks on at the destruction.

"I believe in my country and I want to go back to my job in Baghdad, if possible in the theatres and if not in the streets," Ali says.

The actor is due to debut his latest play in the Iraqi capital next week with seven other colleagues. If it is not possible to use the National Theatre, he will use the school's damaged grounds.

"Our works will be more critical from now," he says. "For example, in our current play, a student asks his teacher what freedom means and the teacher doesn't know how to respond because he has never had experience of this word."

The artist, who has worked in Jordan, Syria and Tunisia, underlines the difficulties of being an actor in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where repression was combined with a lack of financial compensation.

"It really took a lot of vocation and patriotism not to walk away."

SPACE.WIRE