Baghdads mentally ill people, their numbers swollen by the trauma of living under Saddam Hussein, remain sadly neglected despite many promises of help by US representatives.

`They originally said they would help us, but they do no more than to search for rebels,` said Sarsan Raghad, a doctor at Al-Rashad, Iraqs only psychiatric hospital. `They even arrested our director for two months, saying that a mentally disabled suicide bomber was treated here. It was wrong, and he was released,` Raghad said.

The Al-Rashad hospital sits on a huge dusty plain in northeast Baghdad, between two of the war-torn citys chaotic urban slums that in early 2008 saw fierce street battles between Shiite militias and US forces. In the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion, the hospital was looted to such an extent that it closed until the International Red Cross Society refurbished it.

Now with 1,300 beds, the clean hospital once more treats the nations most critically ill. The majority of patients confined at Al-Rashad are stricken with hereditary schizophrenia or some other mental illness. `We treat the most serious cases,` Raghad said.

Samira is one of the patients who came to the hospital after suffering under Saddams regime. The doctor explained that 10 years ago Samira, who is in her fifties, was a journalist before she fell foul of Saddam. `One day she wrote an article against the regime of Saddam Hussein. She was arrested, tortured. Since then she has been sick although she has stabilised in the last four years`.

These peoples problems have no apparent cause and some recover fully, but even those who feel well again do not necessarily leave the hospital. According to Raghad, 40 percent of patients could be released, but their families do not want them anymore.

`In every country statistics show that you have at least one per cent of the population (who are) schizophrenic. Iraq has 25 million people, so that gives us 250,000.` But there are no statistics, and anyway we dont see them. Because in our Iraqi culture, a man has to be a man and if he shows depression it will only disgrace him.` Only two to three per cent of patients are labelled `dangerous` and confined to a high security area where there are `all kinds of criminals,` he adds.