Two Kuwaiti men walk in the Al Ahmadi oil field, where wells were set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops, in March 1991.
Baghdad - Despite hints of a diplomatic rapprochement, people in both countries say the wounds have yet to heal.
The most painful of these, for many Iraqis, was the embargo imposed by the United Nations just four days after Saddam's invasion.
The Iraqi dinar, until then worth $3, began a jaw-dropping devaluation, settling at 3,000 dinars to the dollar.
The wages from a month of working odd jobs were barely enough to buy a chicken to feed the family, recalled Jassem Mohammed, who lived through the embargo in the city of Kut, around 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of the capital.
Iraqi troops returning from Kuwait saw their savings vanish.
"The army lost its prestige."
A few cunning businessmen linked to Saddam ran sanctions-busting and smuggling operations, prototypes of the mass graft still plaguing the Iraqi state today.
"The embargo changed people's ethics and opened the way for corruption," said Mohammed.
It also destroyed Iraq's middle class: with goods barred from entering, Hisham Mohammed saw his father's business of importing construction materials collapse.
Only 17 at the time, Ghida Al Amer is still horrified by the fate of her older sister, a chemist who helped the Kuwaiti "resistance" lay explosives for incoming Iraqi troops.
"The wound is still there."
Forgive, but never forget
The UN only lifted the last of its sanctions on Iraq in 2010, and Baghdad has paid around $50 billion in the last three decades in reparations.
Today facing its worst fiscal crisis in years amid the coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices, Iraq has asked for an extension for the final $3.8 billion.
Kuwait has demonstrated some goodwill: in 2018, it hosted a global summit to gather funds to rebuild Iraq, ravaged by the three-year fight against Daesh.
But it remains bitter over two issues: borders and bodies.
Kuwait's maritime patrols regularly detain Iraqi fishermen who stray too far into neighbouring waters. Iraq says the UN-drawn maritime borders are unfair.
Kuwait is also lambasting Iraq for delays in identifying the remains of Kuwaiti victims buried in Iraq.
The fate of around 1,000 citizens from each country remains unknown, after years of war and chaos.
A programme by the International Committee of the Red Cross to repatriate remains has only brought home the bodies of 215 Kuwaitis and 85 Iraqis.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait sparked an exodus of foreign residents. - AFP Photo
Her father Ahmad, a leading figure of Kuwait's resistance, was tortured and ultimately killed by Iraqi forces.
"With time, we discovered that Iraqis, like us, suffered the tyranny of Saddam Hussein," she said.
But erasing the scars of the invasion is "impossible", she said.
"It was the most important event for my entire generation," she told AFP.
"We may be able to forgive and reconciliate, but we will never be able to forget."