Jun 30, 2018

Iraqi cellist and conductor Karim Wasfi has played a concert for "peace and co-existence" amid the ruins of Mosul, almost a year after Iraqi forces ousted the Islamic State group from the capital of its self-declared "caliphate".

Dozens of people attended on Friday as Wasfi, in full concert dress, played on a makeshift stage among the most iconic religious monuments of Iraq's second city.

The venue lay between the Catholic church of Our Lady of the Hour with its famed clock tower and the remains of the iconic Hadba ("hunchback") leaning minaret next to the Nuri Mosque, destroyed during the battle for the city.

Famed Iraqi maestro and cello player Karim Wasfi performs in front of the Al-Hadba leaning minaret at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul’s war-ravaged Old City (photo by: Zaid AL-OBEIDI/AFP)

Wasfi was joined by the