Life on the Rubbish Dump Our World

Now on BBC News, it's time for Our World: Life on the Rubbish

This is the rubbish dump for the city of Erbil,

capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Each day, it gets bigger, fed by a fleet of trucks,

bringing thousands of tonnes of waste.

For some people, Erbil and its rubbish dump provide

Hundreds scrape a living from the city's waste.

Ibrahim and his family are Kurds from Kobani in Syria.

They have worked on the city's dump for six months.

Some of the other children are even younger.

Up to 1.2 million people have come to the Kurdish region from Syria

Thousands of refugees end up here in Erbil,

It's July and the temperature at the dump can reach 50 centigrade.

The burning rubbish emits dangerous fumes and causes a stench you can

People there are demanding that the toxic tip be closed.

Those working on it just have to put up with the filth.

This woman and her daughter search the rubbish for anything

They belong to a large family of Arab Bedouins near IS-controlled

They had sheep and other animals and were quite well off.

So to is the fine food among us the rubbish. -- sometimes they find

food. She has five young children

and spends most of her time at home. Muhammad used to be

a prosperous farmer. Now he has to depend on his wives

and children to survive. Meanwhile, Muhamed the need for

expensive medicines is putting them on the extra pressure.

These two siblings are taking their father to hospital.

He's diabetic and needs to see a doctor regularly.

They'll have to pay and the family is worried he may not make

Six months later, it is January, 2016. It's freezing. But no matter

the season, the rubbish from Irbil keeps piling up at the dump. The

first trucks produced the best pickings. Even at 4am some people

are at work. Ibrahim and his father,

the Syrian Kurds from Kobani, But the most valuable

items have already gone. The dump offers a precarious

livelihood. But even more people

are scavenging now than in July. Some of them have surprising

backgrounds. But for one family, things have got

better. Since the summer, Muhammad's health has improved. He and his

wives and children are still living in the house belonging to the

Kurdish landowner. And now he pays them to work on his farm.

Barzan does not speak much Kurdish and the landowner only a little

Arabic, but by mixing the two languages they manage

Unlike most refugees in this area, Muhammad and his family have

returned to something like their old way of life. But it's small

compensation. The Iraq Muhammad new is no longer. -- knew.

Thanks to their friendship, the families' circumstances have

But life is still far harder than anything they knew back home.

Ibrahim and his father are no longer working on the rubbish dump. They

found jobs on a chicken farm. Despite calls to close the toxic

tip, it remains open. So long as it does, it will offer

this region's most desperate It's a slightly fresher feel

to the weather this weekend, as the high humidity moves away,

which fuelled the thunderstorms over