Hi, NAMU Lanter Combo here with some exciting news. My award-winning podcast, Dear Dota, is back for a second season.

We're bringing you more moving personal stories and more letters of advice from people all around the world, for Dota's everywhere.

That's Dear Dota from the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Matt Pintas.

We're bringing you a series of programmes to mark the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War.

Today, escaping Iraq. This is the story of one man's agonising journey to freedom and safety.

Baghdad tonight under heavy bombardment on the day the war started.

America and British troops are in action on land, sea and in the air.

It's the 20th of March 2003.

We in Iraq really had no idea what was going on.

We've been fed this internal propaganda through the Iraqi national radio, all of our lives.

You only hear that, the US hates Iraq and they want to destroy the people of Iraq.

That's Yasad Danoon, at 20. He was just one of millions of Iraqi citizens trapped in Baghdad.

His bombs rained down on the capital.

Take cover if you hear the sirens, hide and stay home.

And I remember hearing rumors through the streets.

And you hear that, okay, the US started the invasion.

And it's an air strike, but also a land invasion.

Finally, the war has come to the heart of Baghdad.

The sound of Iraqi anti-aircraft guns were broken by the huge explosions of incoming missiles and bombs.

I'm hearing tanks, I'm hearing gunshots, I'm hearing people dying.

There was debris from some of the tanks literally hit the door before I opened it.

...