I was one of the last photographers left in Mosul during the final days of the battle to liberate the Iraqi city from Islamic State in July 2017. I have covered the humanitarian consequences of war for three decades, but the sheer horror I witnessed during this conflict felt different.

There was no end to the cruelty. The stream of suicide bombs, grenades, car bombs, and snipers was relentless. People were forced to watch their loved ones die in front of them. And when civilians did reach the point of escape, Isis would use them as human shields.

But what really ripped at my heart was the plight of Isis children whose parents had been suicide bombers for the caliphate. I met one little girl called Khadija who was calling out for her mother, not realising that the burns all over her body were caused by her mother’s suicide bomb. As a mother, I will never understand an ideology that would induce you to hurt your own.

The photo was taken near the ruins of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, where Isis first proclaimed the caliphate in 2014. It was like Armageddon: buildings were smoking, bombs were dropping and there was sniper fire from all angles. When people fled, they were first checked for suicide bombs by Iraqi soldiers, men had to remove their shirts, and their names were checked for recorded Isis affiliation. Then they moved on to the trauma stabilisation point for emergency medical care, which was where I spent most of my time taking photographs.

This little girl had fled with a group of women and children. She paused here momentarily. My fixer had gone missing so I couldn’t speak to her but I knew I had to take the shot. It was the picture of innocence amid war, a tragic juxtaposition of this tiny girl who should have been enjoying her childhood trapped in the middle of this catastrophic battle.

Hope is something I always look for, even amid the worst devastation and despair. I didn’t see much of it in Mosul

She only stayed briefly. She looked to me as though she was in shock and she rejoined the group of women and children only a few moments later. This piece of rubble was the only place she could rest.

I wanted my work in Mosul to help viewers to see these people as individuals. It’s really hard when you talk about war and statistics and the numbers dying to remember the humanity behind the numbers. But when you focus on individual faces, or a little girl sitting in debris with her head in her hands, it touches people on a universal emotional level, and gives viewers the possibility to connect. That’s always been my goal.

Isis may have been defeated, but the ideology has not been eradicated. Some of the children I met already knew the meaning of martyrdom because their parents indoctrinated them from birth. I don’t know what happens to those kids.

Hope is something I always look for, even within the worst devastation and despair. I didn’t see much of it in Mosul. Perhaps the closest thing came from the medics. They saved countless lives, and I know they were frustrated – the Iraqi government would not let them any nearer to the frontline, so they were forced to watch people die who they probably could have saved had they had just a couple more minutes. To me, they were angels amid the misery.

Photojournalism is never about us, we’re just the link to the narratives of others. You have to feel something when you see things like this, but empathy can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. I have always tried to be open about the trauma I’ve experienced, the PTSD, the meltdowns, but I think the thing that saves my sanity is my understanding that what I have experienced is nothing compared with what the people in my pictures have lived through.

‘Empathy can be as much of a curse as a blessing’ … Carol Guzy. Photograph: Andrea Pritchard

Carol Guzy’s CV

Born: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1956.

Training: Associate’s degree in applied science for photography, Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

Influences: Walt Michot, W Eugene Smith, Nancy Andrews.

High point: “When I was asked to be godmother to a girl I had photographed during the Sierra Leone civil war.”

Low point: “Losing my mother, sister and dearest friend, then losing my job at the Washington Post. My heart was broken, but my spirit remained.”

Top tip: “Have empathy. It’s never about us, it’s the narrative of the people in our pictures that matter.”