As residents surge back into a city that less than a year ago was embroiled in fierce battle, garbage is piling up and informal dumps have sprung up throughout the city.

Adding to the problem is a lack of dump trucks. Islamic State fighters tried to defend their position in Mosul by using state-owned dump trucks to block roads and even turned some of them into truck bombs. During months of intense battle to wrest the city back after three years of militant rule, the trucks were either destroyed by airstrikes or blown up by the radical fighters themselves.

At the main city dump, some of the city’s poorest residents sifted through debris looking for anything salvageable. The foul smell emanating from the sea of trash was inescapable and the thick, chemical-infused smoke wafting through the air burned the nose.

Many of the scavengers were young children. Armed with hooked metal rods, they descended on every new dumpster that arrived with a mixture of excitement and desperation. They seemed to encourage one another with the idea that there could be treasure amid the trash.

There were also many women scavenging in these harsh conditions. Though wary of a foreign journalist, the eldest of the group explained that many of them were widows and this was their only way to survive and provide for their children. Under the Islamic State, she said, women were forbidden from doing this activity and only since the group’s defeat had such large numbers of women joined in.