Five years after liberation – hope for healing in the old town of Mosul – News


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After the IS was driven out, the city lay in ruins. Well, with the reconstruction, life is slowly coming back.

In the heart of the old town of Mosul stands the 800-year-old al-Nuri Mosque. ISIS blew them up in 2017 as Iraqi forces advanced. Now it is being restored by Unesco with money from the United Arab Emirates. The restoration of the mosque is a symbol of the people slowly returning to the surrounding neighborhood.

There are two bakeries across the street. In one, Ahmed is serving a customer and is beaming. “Life is coming back here, thanks to international aid organizations and the Iraqi government,” says the master baker. Next to his bakery is a hairdresser. He is doing the hair of a 4-year-old boy in a tiny little shop and is happy about what is happening in Mosul.

Revival picks up speed

“If I open my shop again, my neighbor will come back too. And when two stores are open, a third opens its shop. And that’s how we revive the old town.” In addition to the hairdresser’s, there is also a small stationery. Two women are standing in front of the entrance, one older and one younger.

Their faces are marked by the suffering of the war years. «Life is returning to Mosul. But the dead never come back,” says the older woman. Her son and his entire family perished in the war. “My grandchildren are gone forever. A disaster,” she says. The younger woman, Marwan, gets involved. she is widow “IS beheaded her husband,” says a passer-by who knows her. She nods sadly, says goodbye and walks on.

Neighborhood help in the old town

In the stationery, the calligrapher Alaa Almola shows a sample of his skills. He knows the two women. He knows what they’ve been through. He too stayed in Mosul throughout the war. So did Abed el Jabbar Hamoudi, a customer, and Ossama, a young man who was one of the only ones to survive the bombing of his house when Mosul was liberated from IS.

The bloody capture and recapture of Mosul


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Legend:

View of the devastated Mosul in 2017.

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Up until five years ago, Mosul in Iraq was in the headlines, like Kyiv, Mariupol and Odessa are today. The city gained notoriety when IS conquered it in just a few days in 2014 and made it the capital of their self-proclaimed caliphate.

Three years later, in 2017, the Iraqi army drove IS out of the city with the help of the United States. The battle for the old town lasted several months: Thousands of civilians died and entire districts were reduced to rubble and ashes.

Now, almost five years after ISIS was driven out, life is slowly returning to Mosul. The UN’s global development program, the UNDP, alone has invested a quarter of a billion dollars in the reconstruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses.

All three of them say that people here can only heal together. “People in the old town have a very close bond,” explains the customer. “We know each other, are friends or relatives. If someone is poor, suddenly someone knocks on their door and brings them meat or vegetables. By whom, nobody knows. Everyone does what they can, but never reveals themselves, so that nobody has to be ashamed of their poverty.”

Three people on a flat roof

Legend:

The owner Alaa Almola shows the view from the roof of his stationery with his son.

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This is an act of humanity, says the owner of the stationery, after all the inhumane things that have happened to them – and this in the midst of the destruction that is still visible, even in his shop. Together with his son, he leads through his workshop up a badly damaged staircase to the roof. From there you have a direct view of the al-Nuri Mosque, which is being renovated. “The weather is so nice,” he says. “Spring is coming!”

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