KEY POINTS:
Shiite driver Basim Mohammed sits by his dusty truck at "Friends Garage", an informal Baghdad transit point where passengers are swapped depending on their sect.
Not long after, Abu Ali, an old Shiite man forced by gunmen to leave his home in the Sunni area of Abu Ghraib, turns up in a pickup truck. His belongings are stacked in the back.
His Sunni driver is too scared to venture into the mainly Shiite suburb where Abu Ali will live with relatives, so he has brought him to "Friends Garage".
"I was afraid they would kill my five sons so I decided to move," said Abu Ali, wearing a tattered brown robe and watching workers carry tables, chairs, bedding and other belongings on to Mohammed's truck.
"I had to use this point of transfer because drivers can't risk going into areas where they may be killed ... There is no difference between us [Shiites and Sunnis], I just don't understand."
Truck drivers have created the garage as a point of exchange for passengers fleeing the sectarian tension, and for goods got from Syria and Jordan through Sunni Anbar province but destined for Baghdad's Shiite markets.
The dozens of Shiite and Sunni drivers who work in the garage on the city's western outskirts say they avoid heated debates about politics and get on well with each other.
Mohammed started working at the garage after he himself was forced to flee a Sunni area just outside Baghdad.
The garage is on a main highway just outside the mainly Sunni Ghazaliya district.
Iraqi soldiers guard both entrances to protect it from attacks by militants.
The garage offers a way to navigate this divided city, but some drivers bemoaned the fact that there was no other option.
Another Sunni driver, who had just brought in food and other goods on his semi-trailer from Jordan for the markets near Shiite militia strongholds, said he would lose some of his wage because he will have to share it with a Shiite driver who will make the delivery.
"I wish I could go to Shiite areas again but the reality is I have not seen Baghdad for three years," he said.
- REUTERS
