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BAGHDAD: Rukaya Al-Zubaidi placed a cautious foot on a skateboard and then struggled to find her balance as others glided back and forth at Baghdad’s first park dedicated to the sport.
“It’s only my second time skating, but I want to keep going, especially now we have the space for it here in Baghdad,” the 22-year-old said as loud music mixed with laughter from fellow boarders.
After negotiating with authorities for five years, three organizations from Italy, Iraq and Belgium have now opened Baghdad’s first skatepark.
It is not the first in the country, however: that honor went to the northern city of Sulaimaniyah.
The new skatepark at the sports ministry in a Baghdad suburb provides a welcome means of escape for young people in a country that has endured decades of conflict and crisis.
It also offers a rare respite from the gaze of conservative Iraqi society.
Zubaidi, wearing a pink sweater, watched fellow enthusiasts, both professional and amateur, as they rolled on colorful boards in the open-air park.
“When my friends first told me about skateboarding, I was scared,” she said — not just of falling but also because of what people might say and because her parents might not approve.
“But when I tried it, it just filled me with a beautiful energy,” she added.
The skatepark project “is about inclusivity and community, about having a place for everyone,” said Ishtar Obaid of Iraq’s Forsah association.
Forsah, which means “opportunity,” was one of the three organizations that spearheaded the project.

It provides a space “where people from different backgrounds” come together, and “that’s the beauty of sport,” said Obaid, who also advises Iraq’s Olympic committee.
Her organization plans to run skateboarding classes for children and trainers.
“It is a new chapter for sports in Iraq,” Obaid said.
When the authorities approved the project in late 2024, the associations including Make Life Skate Life, a Belgian-US charity that has set up skateparks in northern Iraq, Libya and India, built the new facility in just one month.
Kjell Van Hansewyck of Make Life Skate Life said it was a “real struggle” to find a location for the skatepark.
He described Baghdad as “a crowded city with a lot of pollution and traffic jams,” and lacking “public land and facilities for children.”
The Iraqi capital is bustling with dozens of infrastructure and construction projects. Towering cranes and machinery dominate its streets, as new tunnels and bridges are being built.
“It is like one big work site,” Van Hansewyck said.
When authorities said they could provide space at the sports ministry, the groups could hardly turn down the offer, despite this meaning skaters would have to pass through security checkpoints.
Van Hansewyck said the skatepark is “not visible from the streets,” which makes it difficult for people who want to check it out.
But he is confident that passionate skaters will still promote the park and do everything possible to make it a major attraction.

Mohammad Al-Qadi, 19, bought his first skateboard in 2019, the year he also joined a wave of nationwide anti-government protests.
Baghdad was the vibrant epicenter of the movement. Protesters also organized cultural and sports events before the demonstrations were crushed in a brutal crackdown that saw more than 600 people killed.
Since then, Qadi had only been able to skate on Baghdad’s busy streets.
“When we took to the streets with our skateboards, people would call us bad boys,” he said.
In conservative Iraq, skateboarding is widely viewed as an alternative sport adopted by rebellious youths — leading many to shun it for fear of ruining their reputations.
Qadi said this perception may have slightly improved, but until now local skaters still had nowhere to go.
“When I feel pressured by my studies or in my personal life, I turn to skateboarding, which has never let me down,” he said.
The new skatepark offers an “opportunity” for a break and a rethink, Qadi added.
Hussein Ali, 18, has been skating for five years and said he hoped Iraq will eventually have a national team to compete in championships.
Skateboarding was one of five sports that made an Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 games.
For some in Iraq, skateboarding provides a sense of normality in a country where violence had long been a fact of life.
For Ali, it is also a way to meet new people.
“When you see someone else skating you simply reach out, and just like that, you become friends.”

JERUSALEM: A little over three weeks since it came into effect, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that halted the Gaza war has become increasingly fragile.
Under the truce, the warring parties have already completed five exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, but have in recent days have entered into a blame game over the implementation of the deal.
US President Donald Trump’s forceful backing of ally Israel has put the ceasefire under strain, and particularly his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and remove its Palestinian inhabitants.
The truce is currently in its first phase. The next ones have not yet been finalized.
Here are the positions of the key actors who could decide the future of the truce:
For days now, Hamas has accused Israel of not respecting the agreement, saying that the amount and type of aid entering Gaza was insufficent.
Israeli authorities have denied the claims.
In several statements, the Palestinian militants have said they had not received machinery requested to clear the rubble in Gaza, and complained about obstacles to evacuating wounded people to Egypt under the terms of the agreement.
On Wednesday, Hamas said that as a result of the Israeli violations it would postpone indefinitely the next hostage release, which was due to take place on February 15.
Hugh Lovatt, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP that the announcement from Hamas may be an attempt to force a decision on the next phases of the truce.
“Hamas’s aim is to break the deadlock in the negotiations on the second phase of the agreement,” he said, adding that the Palestinian movement has been trying to obtain guarantees that the ceasefire will hold and the war will come of a permanent end.
It’s a “Hail Mary pass,” said Lovatt, “because they fear that Israel will take advantage of Trump’s support to impose new conditions and delay the implementation of the agreement.”
The ongoing first phase of the ceasefire is for 42 days. During this period, negotiations for the second phase were meant to start but that has not happened yet.
On Wednesday, a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo to discuss the disputes over the agreement with Egyptian negotiators.
But a Hamas spokesman warned that the group would not bow down to the “language of threats” from the United States and Israel.
Trump on Monday said “all hell” would break out in Gaza if Hamas did not free all Israeli hostages held in the territory by Saturday noon.
Under the terms of the truce, not all hostages were meant to be freed during the first phase.
The president’s threat came soon after he announced a plan for the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip and move its almost 2.4 million residents to Jordan or Egypt.
The proposal has provoked widespread international condemnation, and experts have said it would violate international law.
Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that Trump’s statements had “underscored the US backing of Israel.”
“Trump and Netanyahu have both emphasized the importance of releasing hostages,” Freeman said.
He said that despite making threats, he did not believe that either Trump of Israel’s leaders wanted the war to resume.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Hamas cannot be allowed to use the ceasefire to “rebuild itself and recover strength.”
Echoing statements from the US president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel would resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Hamas did not return hostages by Saturday.
Netanyahu did not specify whether he expected all the hostages to be freed, or a smaller batch due for release under the terms of the deal.
“It’s in his best interest to do it gradually,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
According to her, Netanyahu was deliberately being ambiguous and was “buying time” to extend the first stage of the truce and delay talks about the post-war future of the Gaza Strip.
But Netanyahu also faces domestic “public pressure” to secure the release of the remaining hostages, including through indirect negotiations with Hamas, said Zonszein.
“It could be a determining factor that when the three hostages came out last Saturday, they looked really, really bad,” she said of the three Israelis freed on Saturday.
They appeared emaciated, spurring concern among Israelis for the fate of those still in captivity.
Despite their disputes, Zonszein said that the sides have not “given up on anything yet.”
“They’re just playing power games.”