Gypsies in a village 200 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Iraq's gypsies are one of the country's tiniest minorities. They're also one of its most scorned. Deprived of work and education, the gypsies live like pariahs in ramshackle villages completely cut off from major cities. Our Observer visited one such village in the region of Diwaniya, 200 kilometres south of the capital Baghdad.Iraq’s gypsy population is estimated to be between 50,000 and 200,000 people . They are generally organised in tight-knit communities and live in villages that lie scattered on the outskirts of large cities - particularly in the region of Basra, Baghdad and Nasiriya. Other Iraqis tend to marginalise the country's tiny minority of gypsies, who are often derided for behaving unlike mainstream society.