Sarah Muthanna is an Iraqi medical student who fled the violence of Baghdad when her father was kidnapped last year. Like many Iraqis she found refuge in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Sarah has been struck by the way academics, students and doctors in Iraq are threatened and killed in their offices, clinics and lecture halls. Many have left Iraq - a country once renowned for its centres of learning. For the BBC, NewsMaker winner Sarah Muthanna reports on the Iraqi brain drain.

The Iraqi brain drain

Back to Baghdad

Click here to read Sarah's report at BBC News Interactive


Sarah's thoughts on the BBC Newsmaker experience:

"Doing this report for the BBC World Service was one of the most interesting and fulfilling experiences that I've ever had.

When I first heard about the BBC NewsMaker competition, I decided to write about my personal experience, losing my father in the violence, losing my education, my home, leaving everything behind and fleeing to Jordan.

I had to ask some difficult questions that stirred very deep emotions and memories, for me and for my interviewees. Sarah

As I started writing, I realized that I wasn't alone in that nightmare and there were thousands of people in exactly the same position. I found that thought to be both comforting and alarming at the same time, because the best brains in the country were being forced to leave, professors and students alike.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is the message that I want to get across, that violence isn't only killing innocent people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb explodes, it is creeping into every school, every classroom, every lecture hall, every doctor's clinic.

I wanted that message to come across through the voices of young people who faced that danger everyday. That gave me the chance to interview some amazing people, hear about their fears, their pain but most importantly I got the chance to hear them talk about their hopes for a brighter future.

Being involved myself in the story gave me the advantage of being very passionate about making it sound moving to the listeners, but it also meant that I had to ask some difficult questions that stirred very deep emotions and memories, for me and for my interviewees.

I learned that the best way to make your interviewee feel comfortable, even when talking about a painful experience, was to be sympathetic and understanding and supportive.

Being so closely involved with the story also meant that I had to make some hard editorial decisions about what to include in the piece, because every single thing these young people said was so powerful and so crucial to deliver the story.

I felt a huge responsibility to convey the exact truth about what was going on back in most universities and educational facilities in Iraq, and that's why I decided to use the list issued by the Brussels Tribunal to give the exact names of academics targeted and the exact place and time where they were assassinated, even though it was difficult to incorporate into a radio programme.

Every single thing these young people said was so powerful and so crucial to deliver the story. Sarah

Radio can be a very demanding type of media especially for someone who has never done anything of that sort before, but I was fortunate enough to work with a wonderful producer.

She gave me kind words of encouragement when my hands were shaky and sweaty the first time I held a microphone and tried to interview people. And who endured me when I recorded 50 minutes of irrelevant chitchat, and put up with me when I ruined the best parts of the interviews by interrupting my interviewees and trying to make their point for them!!

I was very touched by her sympathy and compassion with what I was going through as a person, and with what my country was going through as a whole.

There were many occasions when I paced up and down the hotel room where we were doing the editing, trying to make everything fit together, and I had many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to present this story to the world in the best way possible.

If I have managed to make just one person listening to this report, stop and think, and consider the deeper aspects of the violence in Iraq, and change the stereotypical image of Iraqis around the world, then I think I did my job well.