Hikma Meteab, 48, carries her daughter Ghufran Abbas, 3, through the courtyard of their family home in Al-Bu Hussain village on the bank of a former canal which has dried up, in Diwaniya, Iraq, October 11, 2022. Hikma's husband, Abbas Elwan, committed suicide in August after attempts to find water for his parched farmlands failed. Abbas received a monthly unemployment allowance, but with dwindling crops and rising food prices he went into debt. In desperation, he tried digging wells to grow vegetables. Each well cost the equivalent of his monthly allowance. Each time water would emerge for a few days, and then dry up. "That was his last hope, and there was no water," Abbas's brother Ali told Reuters. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani SEARCH "CLIMATE MIDEAST WATER" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES.