The Gulf: On The Edge of Tragedy

Melia Tabono lies semiconscious on a cot, her swollen face glistening with sweat and sand. An intravenous tube drips saline solution into her veins, as a friend, Thelma Nonatura, a fellow Filipino, desperately fans a piece of cardboard to combat the 95 degrees heat. Six weeks ago, Tabono, 38, worked as a seamstress in Kuwait City. Now she is among tens of thousands of refugees struggling to survive in a strip of scorched desert between Iraq and Jordan. "Our lives have been destroyed," murmurs Nonatura. "I can't feel anything anymore."

In the next cot an elderly Sri Lankan woman shakes uncontrollably,...