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WATCH: Refugees Return Home to East Mosul to Rebuild the Life They Left Behind

Posted on
July 10, 2017
by Andrew Cullen
After nine months of gruesome fighting, the Iraqi army has finally liberated most of Mosul from ISIS control. As fighting in the west city nears its end, refugees are returning to their homes in East Mosul to find their community pulverized into rubble as a result of years of relentless shelling.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates that 900,000 people have been displaced by the fight against ISIS in Mosul alone. Now, with ISIS on the run, displaced Iraqis are returning to their home with the hopes of rebuilding the life they were forced to leave behind.

The UNHCR: ‘Rebuilding Hope, Lives and a Future in Mosul, Iraq’

The PSA-style mini-documentary from the UNHCR starts with a bird’s eye view of the suburbs of East Mosul. The scene is nearly monotone with the dull grey of dusty concrete heaps – the ruins of former homes.

“Years of fighting has left East Mosul in ruins. Destruction is everywhere,” the screen reads. “The scars of war still fresh, but as the battle in the west of the city nears end, returnees in the east are reclaiming their lives.”

Since the start of the insurgency against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the United Nations has registered more than 5 million refugees fleeing violence in their home countries. Those displaced often dream of a day when they can return home and begin to rebuild their lives.

The video then zeroes in on a family in Al-Khadra neighborhood of Mosul. We follow the father, Ahmad El Hadidi, back to his home, which he fled with his wife and five children only a week before it was nearly leveled by bombing.

“This house means my whole life to me. It is my small nation,” he says. “It was painful to see it destroyed.”

“But the first thing that came to my mind when I saw it was how to rebuild it again,” he adds. “This is what I’m doing now. We spent beautiful days here and I’d like to renew them.” We see El Hadidi working with neighbors to rebuild his home, nearly from the ground up. “All the people of Mosul and Iraq must heal their wounds and look ahead toward a new chapter.”

“The UN says Mosul’s basic infrastructure will cost at least $1 billion to rebuild,” the video reads. “That includes re-establishing water, electricity, schools and hospitals.”

“The extent of the damage is huge. But so is the resilience of the people of Mosul.”

The End of the Beginning

Routing ISIS militants out of the second largest city in Iraq is only the first step in ridding the region of ISIS – and many estimate that due to heavy sectarian conflict and the lack of a strong central government in Iraq or Syria, the fighting may never fully resolve.

In an interview with MSNBC, Arizona Sen. John McCain told Morning Joe that that the battle for Mosul is “The end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end,” of ISIS.

Still, slow and painstaking progress seems to be underway. Eventually coalition forces will move further into ISIS-held Anbar province in Iraq – and then into Syria, where fighting against ISIS will make its way toward Raqqa – the proclaimed capital of ISIS operations. Fighting in Raqqa is expected to be unimaginably fierce – and for followers of ISIS, literally divine.

But at the G20 summit last week, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered a ceasefire in Southwest Syria that has seemed to stick for the last few days at least. Though, there have been many ceasefire attempts in the Syrian War in the past – all of which have eventually unraveled under the chaos of war.

Perhaps John McCain is right: in the battle for ISIS, the liberation of Mosul may only be the “end of the beginning.” But for families finally returning home, hopefully rebuilding their life can be the beginning of something new.
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