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THE area around Bahrain's Tree of Life, an inspiration to life in the desert and perhaps the country's most famous living monument, is looking more like a garbage site.
This week the rotting carcasses of sheep were strewn across the sand alongside a rusting bath tub, a broken chair and cardboard boxes full of rubbish as teenagers on dirt bikes thundered by without a care in the world.
Mother-of-two Fouzia Hamza, 34, from Riffa, is a regular visitor to the ancient site which is promoted across the world as a "must see" attraction for tourists to the kingdom.
Mrs Hamza, a photo-journalist, said: "I have been to the Tree of Life several times in the five years I have lived in Bahrain and have noticed how much the area has changed for the worse.
"No-one seems to care anymore. When I saw the dead animals I thought how sad it looked. The sheep were just dumped along with other garbage - there were so many of them it was quite distressing.
"It didn't appear that they had been slaughtered - more like someone had taken an easy way out to just dump the dead bodies."
Flies covered the carcasses and bones from the animals protruded through their rotting skin and Mrs Hamza had to cover her face to take this shocking photograph.
She said it is such a shame that no-one appears to care about the Tree of Life and the surrounding paths leading to it. This broad, shady, mesquite tree is the only one around in a sea of sand. And it has been there for more than 400 years, although its source of water is a mystery.
