So that's... 6,250, and you have 3,000.
7,250.
6,250... 4,250...
Did you count the brass?
Brass is 1,000... so here’s 5,000.
They can’t add up the value when they sell me something.
They take whatever I give them.
Most are orphaned children or have fathers who were arrested.
The ones with nothing end up in this line of work.
By God, I always feel sorry for them.
They're not in school and have nothing other
than their work as scrap collectors.
Of course I feel bad, but this is their livelihood.
Sometimes they make 4, 5, or 6,000 dinars.
Never more than 8,000.
On the outskirts of Mosul is a place known locally as M’lowatha —
meaning "contaminated."
The war against the so-called “Islamic State”
left large areas of the city in ruins.
Then, a new line of work emerged: scrap collection.
Many of those who sift through the rubble
looking for anything of value are children.
Six years after the defeat of the IS terrorist group,
Mosul is still far from recovered.
To see children working here, and across Iraq, is nothing new:
Sons and daughters have always helped their families
during the summer break or after school.
But the war added a new dimension.
Many of these children no longer have parents to take care of them.
And many have had to drop out of school.
Lucrative oil exports mean that Iraq
is ostensibly a relatively rich country.
But rampant corruption and mismanagement
means hardly any of that wealth trickles down to poorer communities.
As a result, 90 percent of parents and guardians in Mosul
have reported at least one of their children works.
Every day, there are children toiling away
here amid the debris and garbage.
Nineveh province in general and the city of Mosul especially
paid the highest price in the years after 2003.
This was due to the rise of the terrorist groups,
Al Qaeda and the “Islamic State.”
They’ve impacted all aspects of life in our city.
Children all across Iraq are in a very tough situation.
Because of the war and terrorism,
many children in Mosul
lost their parents and became orphans.
Many no longer have providers and many are homeless.
The situation is extremely difficult.
It's changed what it means to be a child.
The terrorist groups aimed to completely transform the city.
But they failed. Mosul is sick.
But God willing, the city will never die. It's still standing.
What can I say? I’ll go anywhere.
I go to work at six in the morning and return at noon.
In the mornings, I wash and then give the donkey her breakfast.
I call her Um Saffwan.
She’s mine.
Um Saffwan and I work a lot together.
There’s no other kind of work for us.
We don’t go to school, we don’t get salaries.
Young people have nothing, and no one to take care of them.
Some fathers are in jail; others were killed in the war.
So that's why we have to go out and work.
Joining Razzan today are two of his friends: Hameed und Maher.
Hameed’s father was an IS fighter who was arrested
when Iraqi forces were recapturing Mosul.
Maher’s father also fought for IS.
He was killed in an airstrike during the war.
Fatherless children are the norm
rather than the exception in Harmat,
the neighborhood where the boys come from.
Like Razzan,
Hameed and Maher are the only ones
providing any income for their families right now.
We’ve remained friends. I love Hameed and Maher.
They’re poor guys... they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Maher’s father is dead — may God rest his soul —
and Hameed’s father is missing.
So I go out with them because there's no one else
to take care of them.
If my father were here, I wouldn’t be working.
He wouldn’t let me.
If my father were here, I'd be in school.
But after he was gone, I was forced to work.
Do you remember your father?
Yes.
What was he like?
We used to work together in the rubble, that kind of thing.
Some of the kids who go to school say:
"Why aren't you in school? School's better for you!”
Well, IS came, so I was never able to go to school.
I don’t have any memories of the war. I was really young.
I remember they destroyed us.
I mean, what is there to remember?!
It was war, and nobody could get out.
I was too young, I don’t remember the war.
Why am I unhappy? I’m unhappy because of this work.
It's exhausting and annoying.
We’ve been doing this work for a long time.
I have no time to do things with friends.
Sometimes you get home at 3 or 4 —
and you go out again at 6 in the morning.
I wouldn’t say yes if someone offered me drugs to sell
or asked me to plant a bomb or go kill some people.
I'm not doing that, thank God.
Why?
Thankfully, my dad tells me not to do these things.
He wouldn’t accept it.
He also advised me not to go out late at night.
And sometimes he warns me before I go to work.
Razzan is a blessing, sent by God to come and help me.
You need a father to stay on the right path —
and to warn you.
These orphans act on whatever pops into their heads.
They do whatever they want.
Maybe they’d lead him down a wrong path.
They only have their mothers, which can’t replace a father.
A father is best.
If the son went missing, he'd go looking for him, right?
I wish we had a store, for example,
so that Razzan could work in it.
It would be better than his work with the cart.
He wouldn't have to go out on the street
or have to deal with bad people.
He would have a job just for himself.
But it’s out of my hands. I can’t offer him anything else.
Before IS came, I used to have a job as a municipal worker.
For 13 years I worked here in Mosul.
Then IS came,
and our entire situation deteriorated drastically, you know?
We had no more work.
But eventually we were liberated, thank God.
I kept on asking the authorities about a job,
but nothing came of it.
I don’t have any connections — except to God.
If I were well-connected, I'd have a job.
My colleagues who were able to pull some strings
got stable employment, but I didn’t.
When IS came, they beat me and injured my spine,
so I’m not really able to work.
Unfortunately Mosul was destroyed
in the brutal campaign waged by IS.
The city lost its infrastructure, its scientific centers,
its schools and laboratories, its healthcare facilities,
electricity supply.
Everything.
Everything connected to the infrastructure
and people's daily lives was completely destroyed.
The area west of the river was hit the hardest —
especially the center, the Old City.
The Old City,
located at the heart of Mosul by the Tigris River,
is an ideal location for collecting scrap metal.
Densely populated neighborhoods
were practically leveled to the ground
during heavy airstrikes targeting IS.
In Mosul, the war left millions of cubic meters of rubble in its wake.
An estimated eight million tons in total.
Six years later, there are still human remains amid the debris.
There are also IEDs and other explosives
that pose a lethal threat to residents —
especially for those scavenging for scrap.
In the years since the war,
mine clearers have defused thousands of explosive belts,
grenades, rockets, and drones —
a difficult and incredibly dangerous job.
Despite their efforts, however,
an estimated 80 percent of the affected areas
have still not been cleared.
Don’t move it under any circumstances.
If you see anything that’s colored red
— like this gas canister — what does it mean?
Danger. So if we see them, what do we do?
We avoid the danger!
I didn't just work in Mosul itself but in the outskirts too.
Whenever there was a danger, we were on site.
I'm also an educator for children and adults,
so they stay vigilant when returning from the camps
to the Old City and other areas.
IS used all kinds of means to harm people, especially children.
There were often explosives hidden in children's toys,
like in teddy bears.
And in lamps.
A while ago, I heard about three children
in a village outside of Mosul, herding sheep.
On their way, they saw something that looked like an electric lamp,
and they bumped it against the ground.
It exploded ... and killed all three of them.
IS used all means to harm as many people as possible.
I’ve found things you’ve never seen in your life.
One time we found an explosive device and took it with us —
but God protected me.
I was looking for metal in the rubble
and discovered an explosive.
We didn’t know what it was.
We thought it was just metal — but it wasn't.
We were lucky we didn't get ourselves killed.
Then the army came and took it from us.
They could tell it was a bomb.
I’ve gotten hurt everywhere, on my leg and my hand...
We’ve seen a lot —
bodies, rockets, bullets, that kind of stuff.
One time I was in the industrial area,
collecting scrap metal.
I tried to carry a metal sheet and it sliced my hand ...
And I hurt my finger on the metal
I usually get about three injuries per week.
Not last week though because I didn’t work that much.
We’re most afraid of cars in the street.
We got hit by one once.
What else can we do?
It’s not up to us — we're forced to do this.
I have to go out every morning to work.
If I don't, my family will starve.
Frankly, children today have most of their needs met.
Of course, they witnessed some very upsetting things,
and those experiences affect their quality of life.
As they grow older,
they'll have more and more challenges to deal with —
even if the city’s doing better now.
Fortunately, the situation in Mosul is stable
and good economically.
There’s reconstruction, and there are schools.
So, basic needs are being met.
But there's still anguish
among those who witnessed that period.
It caused harm to our children and the course of their lives.
School lesson plans need to shield children
from being confronted with this dark period and its tragedies.
All I want is to go to school. To learn to read and write.
I'd love that.
But if I tried to register now,
they'd say I'm too old and it's too late.
Officially, a child who has dropped out of school
has to re-enroll within three years.
But there are additional obstacles
facing children in this neighborhood.
According to local authorities,
219 families in Harmat
are believed to have once had links to the “Islamic State.”
It was here that the IS uprising in Mosul began.
A number of homes have been spray-painted
with the words "Beit Daeshi" or "IS House" —
some, simply with an encircled X.
So, in order to enroll in school,
if you've never been enrolled in school, you know,
need the father's documentation or the mother's documentation.
And then the child themselves needs their civil documentation.
At this point the government is pushing for everyone
to have their unified ID cards.
Although we know that there are delays in the system
for everyone to receive that documentation.
So a nationality certificate might suffice.
In terms of the numbers, we know that, at this point,
several hundred thousand individuals in Iraq
are still without documentation.
And when you factor in the large proportion of the population
who’s under the age of 15 even,
we definitely know that there are still several hundred thousand
children who are without their key documentation,
which does impede them from being able to access
to key services like education.
Razzan, Hameed, and Maher
all lack the necessary documentation to attend their local school.
The problem is a common one in Harmat.
While the neighborhood is one of the poorest
and most isolated in the entire Mosul area,
it’s largely neglected by the city government
as well as local and international NGOs.
Essential services and assistance provided elsewhere
in the city rarely reach this community.
We've had no NGOs come and help us.
We've had no aid at all.
I spent three years in the Hassan Shami camp —
and then I stayed at the Hamam Al-Alil camp.
Not a single NGO was there to help us.
Not even with a thousand dinars.
When we were at the camp:
sure, we were given sugar, flour and cooking oil,
but that’s it.
That's the only help we received.
In terms of the role that discrimination might play
in terms of restricting services to specific areas:
Of course, we acknowledge that that is an ongoing issue.
But for the Harmat area in particular,
it's really just a mix of a complex set of factors
that determine where, when, and how we're able to operate.
Are there any NGOs coming to help you in Harmat?
Sometimes aid workers come, but then they leave again.
They say they'll get in touch later.
But so far nothing’s come from it.
So at the end of 2022,
the UN-led humanitarian country team and cluster system
did transition out of Iraq, which, in our opinion,
has really signaled to the rest of the world
and large international donors
that there is this end of humanitarian needs in Iraq —
and we of course know that's not true.
What led to that decision being made?
Sure.
So, the way it was communicated to international NGOs,
local NGOs, and other stakeholders
who were involved in the humanitarian response is that,
you know, five years after the liberation
that a lot of the needs had been met, the humanitarian needs.
You saw for example that in Federal Iraq,
the government made the decision
to close the vast majority of IDP [Internally Displaced People] camps.
And so I think that definitely curtailed
a lot of the important work that was going on.
If my life were to change, well...
I’d just like to go to school, then my life would change.
If I could go to school,
things would be so much better than they are now.
Mosul has come a long way since the war ...
Shops are open.
Large parts of the city have been rebuilt.
And in many neighborhoods, life has returned to normal...
At times, it can be easy to forget what happened here...
And then, a moment later, you turn the corner and remember ...
There are two Mosuls now.
One is a city with a renewed heartbeat,
slowly finding its feet again, and recovering from its recent past.
And then there are the ruins and the debris.
For the children, Mosul remains a tough place.
Given the circumstances,
their resilience is both remarkable and heartbreaking.
What the future holds for young people like Razzan, Hameed,
and Maher is impossible to say.
Like most people in Mosul, they live life one day at a time.
No, I’m not angry. The opposite.
God gave me this life.
You could say that our financial situation isn’t that good.
But thank God, we’re fine with everything.
There was one time I was riding down the road with my cart
and some scrap metal,
and there was this other kid on his way back from school.
He stared at me and said:
“Look how dirty he is. Look how dirty this street kid is."
I looked back at him and said:
"Call me whatever you want.
All that matters is that I’m supporting my family.”