"Come and see," they insist, moving towards the concrete blast walls of Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone. The street is lined with tents - some of them old plastic ones left behind by aid agencies, others roughly formed by throwing colourful sheets over makeshift frames. They are filled with people laid out on blankets and grubby mattresses. Some sleep, some smoke shishas. All of them are waiting. This a protest camp, almost a month old now. It sprang up after Iraq's parliamentary election on 10 October, and it is manned by supporters of the Fatah alliance representing Iran-backed Shia Muslim militias, who say they do not trust the results. Perhaps Fatah's loss of two-thirds of its seats this time round is motivating that view. When I mention the fact that hundreds of international observers from the UN and EU were sent to Iraq to try to ensure the integrity of the poll, they still insist it was not fair. This was supposed to be an important election. They were held early because of pressure from the widespread youth protests against corruption, unemployment and crumbling public services that swept Iraq in late 2019. But high-profile murders and kidnappings of activists involved in the protests followed, and many chose not to stand in the election because their safety could not be guaranteed. Ultimately, the process was boycotted by many of the same people who demanded it. The turnout of just 43% was one of the lowest on record. There is a sense of despair that the same old faces and parties will cling on to power as they have always done. We arrive at the spot the protesters were taking me to. A week ago, as demonstrators moved forwards towards the Green Zone - a reinforced area home to government offices and foreign embassies - security forces opened fire. Two men from the camp were killed, and their faces now appear on posters hanging from tents and railings. n the road in front of me there is a large photo of one of the men, propped up at the tip of a long triangle marked out with Iraqi flag bunting. The dark mark on the tarmac next to the husks of burned-out candles is - they tell me - his blood. They've tried to preserve it on the ground at the very spot where he died. The organisers say around 4,000 people have moved into this camp. At its edge, armed forces stand guard. They look professional in their black uniforms, labelled with army badges. But these are not regular soldiers. They are members of the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella group of mainly Shia militias that set up the Fatah alliance. One poses proudly for the camera, not seeming to realise the contradiction in the US patch he has chosen to emblazon across his chest.