After Isis were driven out of Mosul, traumatised families slowly returned to their devastated neighbourhoods. Over more than two months, they told Mona Mahmood their harrowing stories

Overwhelmed with grief and anger, families have been returning to what is left of their homes in the Old City of Mosul, following its liberation from Isis.

In a set of interviews conducted over more than two months, people haunted by the memories of their loved ones gradually opened up about the traumatic experiences they survived, and the uncertain future they now face.

They reveal the most chilling images of the horror of war, the extraordinary hardship of marching to a safe haven under ferocious shelling, the trauma of constant contact with death and the terrible struggle to survive in a ruined city.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abeer Nedheir’s husband Yassir with their four surviving children

Abeer Nedhier, 34

Abeer lives in Mosul Old City with her husband and four surviving sons. Her eldest son Humam was killed in an air strike as US-led coalition forces battled to retake the city from Isis

When mortar shells were falling all around Ras al-Jadah district [in mid April, 2017], Isis fighters ordered us to leave. I told them: “I prefer to die in my house than be a refugee in a camp.”



They turned their guns towards me and gave me one choice: share a large house in a nearby area with other five families.



My eldest son … was always in fear of missing prayers and being whipped by Isis enforcers Abeer Nedhier

My eldest son, 15-year-old Humam, used to leave the house at 5am to sell desserts. He made about £3 a day. He was always in fear of missing prayers and being whipped by Isis enforcers.



One day a horrific explosion blasted the house. I struggled to understand what had happened.



I dashed to my kids; they were all bleeding. A jagged groove of flesh was missing from my 10-year-old son Ahmed’s right cheek. Humam’s room was destroyed and I caught someone shouting “he’s dead”.

My clothes torn and my body full of shrapnel I put Ahmed in a cart and ran to the hospital. Nadhier had a skull fracture, and both Yousif and Yassir had shrapnel injuries.

Afterwards my sister took us to live in her house in the western al-Zanjili district of the city with six other families.

I had longed to return to our home with my kids, but I did not feel excited when the rest of Mosul rejoiced at the news of victory over Islamic State in July – I just wept for my eldest son. Humam’s death kills me bit by bit each day.

Only two rooms of our house are still standing after the airstrike. When we returned, I hung some curtains across the corners of the destroyed rooms to help us settle in. All our belongings were lost except a small stove and winter clothes.



But the Iraqi army soon told us we could not stay – the district remained dangerous with IEDs and crumbling buildings – so we rented a house nearby.

It is difficult for my husband to work with his injuries, and Ahmed’s wounds mean there is only a slim chance he will go to school.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tareq Abid’s wife and two daughters. All three were killed in Mosul

Tareq Abid, 32

Tareq is a businessman who lives in the Old City. His wife and two daughters were killed in the battle for Mosul

We had a pretty decent life before Isis. I was running my own cafe in Mosul amusement park with my brother, and which was very successful, particularly at weekends.

I had lived in our family house all my life and the narrow alleys of the neighbourhood are alive in my memory. It was a two-storey house with four bedrooms, a large living room and a garden with citrus trees. I lived on the upper floor with my wife and two children, five-year-old Messara, and 18-month-old Mariam. My brother and his family lived below us.

I could not work when Isis controlled Mosul. I was jailed twice for not having a long beard and wearing my trousers too short. The penalty was 60 lashes.



One night at the end of May last year, I heard the sounds of movement and unusual noises. I scrambled up to the roof to see the neighbourhood choked with families fleeing in panic. The military offensive against Islamic State was here. I asked my brother to flee with his family and mine and said I’d follow with our parents.



Under heavy shelling, I led them slowly along a corridor organised by locals as an emergency escape route to the Iraqi army. When we reached Mosul’s left bank I started looking for my brother and family in the refugee camps but couldn’t find them. I began to worry they had been taken as hostages by Isis.



I returned to my neighbourhood where a neighbour told me my brother had been shot in the back by Isis fighters while he was trying to flee. I found him in the American hospital in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul. He was in a bad state.

“I fainted after I got shot in the back and got separated from your family,” he told me.

I ran back to our neighbourhood. Someone said there were bodies on a street corner, but they couldn’t be recovered because of the shelling. I ignored the risks and went there.



My wife’s face couldn’t be identified but she was still wearing her wedding ring. There was a big hole in her back and chest. Her handbag with all her jewellery was gone. Mariam was lying dead beside her. I learnt that Isis fighters had taken my eldest daughter to hospital but she had died too. I never found her body.



When we returned home, it should have been a time of joy, but our house had been damaged by a mortar, and our TV, stove, water cooler and fridge had been stolen. There is no water in the taps but tankers come daily, selling drinking water for £3 a litre. We use wells for washing.



My brother is recovering gradually, but I’m still haunted by what happened. I keep pictures of my wife and daughters all over the house and hear their voices ringing in my ears. I can’t stop buying toys for my daughters, as if they are still alive.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ahmed Al-Taee’s children

Ahmed Al-Taee, 30

Estate agent Ahmed lives in Mosul Old City. He has three children



I cried out in happiness when I heard the news on TV that Mosul had been liberated from Islamic State. I took a taxi to check my home, but got a shock when I approached and passed houses that had been completely obliterated.



I found a pile of burned cars blocking the entrance. A rocket had hit the street, and my car was buried in rubble. Inside, it was absolute chaos: windows, doors, floors … all were destroyed. The house was hardly recognisable.

My father had built that house in al-Khatouniyia district for the family. I got married and had my three kids there. Business was good before Isis, but you can never map your future in Iraq. My father was killed by al-Qaida for being mayor in 2006.

After Isis got into Mosul a mortar fell on the living room of my neighbour’s house and killed them all. Worried about my three kids, I fled to the west side of the city where my sister lives. My mother and brother stayed at home.



Sidera, my daughter, started to have renal problems. I made a deal with a smuggler to take us to Mercin city in southern Turkey for £1,150. Isis got very hard on people travelling to “the land of infidels” as they called it, even though the trip was to save my only daughter’s life.



On the way back to Mosul, Isis fighters stopped me at a checkpoint and I was summoned before a sharia court. The judge accused me of violating Isis orders and I was sentenced to 80 lashes and ordered to attend religious courses. I thanked God for being alive despite the awful pain. It was a miracle the judge did not sentence me to death.



During Isis’s occupation the chances of work were limited – most of the trade was kept among Isis men. They would bring products from Syria and distribute them among shops. But the main concern was the safety of our women – our worst fear was that our women would be attacked.

Shaima Naif’s daughter, Jannat, who was killed in Mosul

Shaima Naif, 38

Shaima lives in the Old City with her five children. Her youngest daughter was killed in the battle for Mosul



When Mosul’s left bank was liberated in January last year, Isis fighters retreated to Mosul’s Old City, setting up their artillery around our house in the Midan district. My six-year-old daughter, Jannat, was terrified of the relentless shooting.



Under Isis’s sharia law, my husband, Ahmed, a taxi driver, was jailed for his beard and fined for playing songs in his cab. My eldest son, Taha, got 30 lashes for his hair, and was punched for not attending prayers. If a woman did not wear a veil, she was whipped and fined.



Our only escape from the Old City was to cross the river to the left bank, where the Iraqi army was based. But Isis fighters were all over the place, burning cars, confiscating boats and imprisoning men attempting to flee the city.



After our neighbour’s house was hit by a mortar which killed nine members of the family, we had been squeezed into our basement for more than five months. Eventually my husband and some other families felt they could not live in danger any more. Wheat mixed with water was our only meal, and our kids were starving. The scenes of slaughtered bodies had become horribly familiar.

Ahmed decided to convert our double bed into a boat to cross the river. He went with our eldest son Taha,16, looking for plastic containers to help act as floats. Jannat and her brothers Abdulrahman,10, and Abdulmalek, 4, were playing outside, when an explosion shook the whole house and the windows and doors were torn to pieces.

Ahmed rushed home and found Jannat dead. He said there was no need to flee anymore, and that we should bury Jannat at home, but I insisted we leave whatever the cost. “I’d rather leave tonight and take Jannat with me,” I said.

It was almost dusk when the men pulled the bed from the basement to the river. We left with five other frightened women and six crying kids. We gave them sedatives to calm them. For an hour, my two wounded sons cowered behind me, while my dead daughter lay in my lap. My heart was thudding.



Suddenly, Isis began to shoot at us, and our hell became worse when the Iraqi army answered. We raised a white sheet of cloth, and the army came to our aid.



Abdulrahman needed an operation to stop the bleeding in his brain, while Abdulmalek has shrapnel in his head that paralysed his arm. Ahmed buried Jannat on the left bank without telling me.

We rented a house on Mosul’s left bank while our sons received hospital treatment. My debts were more than £6,500 by that point. I only learnt about Mosul’s liberation while watching TV. I was happy to be rid of Isis.

A month ago, we went back to the Old City, but an Iraqi soldier told us our district still needs to be cleared of IEDs. A cousin brought us a picture of our house; it was a ruin.



We rented a house nearby and our relatives gave us some furniture. I feel terribly sad when I look at my two sons with their long term injuries.

I’m in shock, and can hardly can sleep at night without sedatives. I can’t endure the nightmare of losing Jannat. I go to visit her and speak to her like a friend, telling her that her brothers are still waiting for her to come back and she need not worry about us any more.



Nada Hamdoun’s eldest son Ali, who was killed in Mosul

Nada Hamdoun, 48

Nada lives in the Old City and has four children. Her eldest son was killed in the war.

I was heavily pregnant with my fourth child when my husband was killed in Kuwait in 1991 in the first Gulf War. My parents helped me buy a house in Mosul’s Old City, in al-Zanjili district.



My eldest son, Ali, was a bright boy. He loved learning and hoped to go to university. He had a great passion for cars and football, but he became the breadwinner for the family pretty young. Trading in construction materials brought in a fairly good income and Ali soon got married, filling the house with his five daughters and one son, Hayder.



The roads from Mosul to northern Iraq were blocked after Isis took over. Ali persuaded his brothers to move to Baghdad, but he stayed home to take care of his family. Subsidies from Baghdad were our only source of income for two years.

Coalition warplanes chasing Isis fighters hiding in Mosul’s alleys created an unprecedented sense of fear in the city. Leaving the house unaccompanied was pretty dangerous, with Isis fighters monitoring the roads.



Ali left home one afternoon, telling me that he would be back soon. An explosion hit the area. Ali was shot in the chest and legs, and his two friends were killed immediately. Two days later we brought Ali home to die.

Soon after our house was blasted by a shell. Hayder, just a toddler, was hit in his belly and his mother was hit in her shoulder.



The bureaucracy of evil: how Islamic State ran a city Read more

I was following the news on TV when fireworks began exploding in the sky above the left bank. Liberation was here. I felt a heavy weight lifted off my shoulders – though I wished Ali was still alive to celebrate.



The army allowed our neighbours back to their houses after they cleared mines and explosives. Many people live in the ruins because they can’t afford expensive rents on the left bank.



I returned to find our neighbour’s house had been hit in an air strike, and it had fallen onto ours. All my furniture had been stolen. There is no compensation on offer.

I now buy a kilo of mutton, tomatoes and potatoes everyday because we have no fridge; we get water from tankers for £6.



It is difficult to describe how painful it is to return home without Ali. He was a copy of his father. His wife looks at her six kids and cries.



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