The first time I went into Mosul, I was driving through East Mosul and as we crossed the bridge
into West Mosul, it took my breath away, the amount of devastation. I’ve visited many
post-conflict environments, ranging from Afghanistan, into the Balkans, and throughout Africa.
And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a city that was so pulverized. It was very reminiscent
of images of the Second World War, of Stalingrad, of Hamburg, of Coventry. You know, completely
blown apart.
Mosul is a city in Northern Iraq. It lies between Erbil and the Syrian border. And when
ISIS was at the peak of its control, there were over 2 million people living in Mosul.
It was the biggest city under ISIS control.
As the city was surrounded, they fell back into defensive positions. They’d had two
years to prepare these, and the majority of these were in the old city, so West Mosul,
on the banks of the river. And these buildings had been booby-trapped, they’d been rigged
with explosives, they had caches of ammunition and weapons for the fighters to use. The fighters
were wearing suicide vests and prepared to fight to the end. And the coalition forces
dropped a lot of ordnance on them. So the explosive hazard and the explosive contamination
in Mosul is unlike anything I’ve seen before.
So you would have buildings were collapsed in on bodies, some of the buildings had been
booby-trapped or rigged with explosives to stop people returning home. And then there
was the unexploded ordnance from just the actual fighting.
When you look at that level of devastation, you know, people just can’t get back to
their homes, they’re finding it very difficult. The fridge might have been booby-trapped,
so if you open the fridge door it goes off. Or a light switch gets flicked and there’s
a bomb waiting for you.
On top of the different explosive hazards, a lot of the buildings are very unstable.
So if when the teams are clearing, they were to move the wrong piece of rubble the whole
building could collapse on them.
So it’s just a really very difficult and challenging
environment. So people will continue to not be able to return to their homes or rebuild
their homes until the explosive hazard has been cleared.
The actual searches, the guys who are doing a lot of the grunt work, who are on the ground
on their hands and knees, they’re Iraqis. They’re the real unsung heroes. Going out
and finding out where items are. Often items are brought in by people who found them in
their homes, or found them in their gardens, and they bring them to our team sites, and
our team works to destroy these items.
But also looking at some of the new technologies, like drones, and being able to, you know,
put a drone over a site, and look to see what the potential hazard is, and seeing things
from different perspectives and looking at how there are obvious threats. Can we see
an explosive device that is visible? Could we see indicators that an explosive device
might have been laid. Can we look at different avenues of approach, to be able to see where
we can provide the most benefit.
And if you want people to go home, you have to create an environment that
they feel safe. And that’s not just their home being removed of explosive hazards, but
it’s allowing them to have access to clean water, to electricity. For the schools to
be cleared so that children can go back to schools; so that health posts can be cleared
so they can be refurbished, so that hospitals are safe so that doctors can start having
procedures and surgery.
And a lot of the work we’ve been doing has been working to ensure that
we prioritize the tasking we do that has the most impact. So if we clear a water treatment
plant that’s going to provide 250,000 people a day with clean water, or we clear a bridge
so it can be repaired, and a thousand vehicles an hour can cross it. What will give the most
impact? What will give us real value add to the work we do?
And it’s incredible when I was in Mosul to see how quickly families would
go back into the rubble of West Mosul and relay their foundations and start building
their homes again. I mean really incredible to see how proud they are and how they want
to get on of their lives. You know, they’ve gone through a terrible conflict, and they’re
showing a resilience that is very inspirational. And we can help them by removing explosive
hazards, and people can feel confident and they can start getting on with their lives.
THE FIGHT AGAINST ISIL IN IRAQ DISPLACED MORE
THAN 5.8 MILLION IRAQIS
1.8 MILLION REMAIN DISPLACED FROM THEIR HOMES
THOUSANDS OF TONS OF EXPLOSIVE HAZARDS REMAIN SCATTERED THROUGHOUT MOSUL
WHILE MANY RESIDENTS HAVE STARTED RETURNING, THE UN MINE ACTION SERVICE (UNMAS)
ESTIMATES IT COULD TAKE ANOTHER 10 YEARS TO CLEAR THE CITY