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Residents of the Old City return from visiting their destroyed homes, salvaging whatever they can but often coming back empty handed. Much of West Mosul was decimated during the battle between coalition forces and ISIS fighters.
All images © 2013-2022 ADRYEL TALAMANTES, UNLESS SPECIFIED OTHERWISE
Civil defense force members and civilians walk through the destroyed ruins of West Mosul in order to recover the remains of two individuals in the Old City.
All images © 2013-2023 ADRYEL TALAMANTES
The body of 18 year old Nectar Wadala, killed 3 months earlier during the battle of Mosul, is exhumed from a temporary mass grave in the Old City as his father looks away and his brothers shield their eyes. Nectar, along with approximately 30 other civilians were buried in a small garden among the alleyways of Mosul’s Old City.
The remains of Nour Ganem, wrapped in a comforter, is exhumed from a shallow grave in the Old City by her 18 year old son (in red hat) along with members of his family and the Iraqi Federal Police.
Civil defense force members prepare to make their way out of the Old City after recovering the remains of Noor Ganem and Nectar Wadala.
The body of Nectar Wadala is carried by his brothers through the destroyed alleys of West Mosul’s Old City, scene of ISIS’s last stand during their battle with the Iraqi army.
The body of Nectar Wadala rests in the back of a pickup truck wrapped in a white sheet
The entrance to the ruined 12th century grand Al-Nuri Mosque, the location where ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi declared the formation of his caliphate. In the closing days of the battle to retake Mosul ISIS fighters blew up the site with explosives rather than let it fall into coalition hands.
The body of an ISIS fighter killed during the closing days of the battle lies near the rubble of the Al Nuri mosque. The remains of ISIS fighters were left to rot where they lay, often eaten by stray dogs.
Art projects made by students of Mosul Universitie’s faculty of the Arts lay in piles strewn inside one of the campuses rooms. The University sustained heavy damage during the 9 month long battle, with ISIS fighters using it’s large buildings as fighting positions.
A man stands inside a gymnasium in Mosul University, destroyed during the months long battle to retake the city from ISIS.
Young girls cross the street in West Mosul. The battle to retake the city from ISIS had been over for several weeks and while there were sporadic incidents of violence life slowly began to go back to a semblance of normality.
Peshmerga soldiers smoke hookah and relax inside a cinderblock room on a frontline outpost in the desert outside of Daquq, Iraq.
Two peshmerga soldiers sit and take a selfie in the darkness illuminated by the flash of a smartphone on a frontline outpost in the desert near Daquq, Iraq.
August 14, 2017: A Kurdish Peshmerga soldier fires his assault rifle toward Islamic State positions from a frontline outpost manned by approximately 15 soldiers in the desert outside of Daqaq, Iraq.
A Peshmerga soldier sleeps using a rocket launcher as a pillow as dawn breaks on a frontline outpost outside of Daquq.