Tuk tuk: From a nuisance to "hero of the revolution" in Iraq

Protests in Iraq are gaining momentum with thousands of people gathering in a central square in Baghdad and across much of the country's southern provinces. University and school students have also joined the protesters. Tahrir Square, in Baghdad, in particular has become a beehive for activists including some who have erected tents and are staying there.

With crowds packed tightly into the streets, ambulances either can’t reach the victims or become targets themselves for snipers. So tuk tuk drivers, who normally make their living weaving through traffic, have stepped into the breach, plunging headlong down streets to pick up people in harm

“We take the injured. There are no ambulances. The ambulance heads into the protest and never comes back,” said Karrar, the driver of the yellow tuk tuk who raced back into the crowd for another rescue. “They are killing the injured right in the ambulances. We take the injured and we take them to the hospital. Here they are shooting at us and we are peaceful protesters, no weapons and nothing.”

"Tuk-tuk guys were rejected by society before, but now they've got a central place in the protests," said Ali Korani to AFP, a 26-year-old protester. A tuk-tuk carries a man who fainted from the effect of tear gas during the protest.

A man wearing a gas mask drives an ambulance Tuk tuk, one demostrator praised them for their role in a movement calling for an end to official corruption. "We'll erect a statue to tuk-tuk drivers here in Tahrir and give them all the big SUVs used by officials," he said.

The drivers, scrawny young men who use their horns liberally, have wrapped their cars in Iraqi flags, sparking cheers from protesters as they pass. Iraqi celebrities have even been spotted snapping selfies with them, and the United Nations' top representative in the country, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, rode in one when she visited protesters in Tahrir on Wednesday.

More than 110 people have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the uprising, the worst violence since Daesh was crushed two years ago. Reuters journalists have witnessed snipers killing and wounding protesters by firing into crowds from rooftops.