She says.."Mosul & Markets"

I was recently asked whether I actually go to Mosul for work, and about the distance between Erbil and Mosul. Working in a war zone is more than foreign to most Antipodeans, so hopefully a brief intro to what it looks like through my eyes will be of interest to you.

People talk about Mosul in two ways, sometimes referring to the city itself, and sometimes to the city and the surrounding area. I do travel into Mosul city for work, but I haven't been inside for the last 2 weeks as the security situation in the east (the area already controlled by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)) deteriorated considerably. We had a small window of opportunity to be inside so the first step was, of course, a security assessment of the area. We had a visiting security specialist with us, so our assessment involved learning which of the multiple military or police groups are managing the security of the area, a visual assessment of infrastructure, speaking with community leaders and a very quick survey of how many people have returned to the area, whether they lived there before or have moved there since, and their major needs etc.

Typical damage to a large building on the road to Qaraqosh,
a large Christian city near Mosul.

The road to Mosul from Erbil is not dangerous, but it's slow with many checkpoints, manned by the Kurdish Peshmerga in Kurdistan, and then by the ISF in Iraq. The checkpoints mean the 70km journey takes approximately 2.5h. Recently the military stopped trucks going across the only bridge on the main road so we had to go around (we were transporting thousands of mattresses and hundreds of household item kits and food ration kits for a family for 30 days (83kg per family!). Driving around the bridge meant it took us 5h to travel 70km.

When driving into Mosul, our vehicle travels on a normal road with everyone else, and we see Humvees, pick-ups with large weapons on top, crazy-enormous military vehicles, family vehicles with no windows, trucks of supplies and an occasional donkey cart. It is not unusual to hear gunfire, but it is usually directly related to someone’s frustration at the slow pace of the traffic, or desperate crowds of people being unwilling to wait their turn for goods. It’s amazing how quickly it becomes normal to hear gunfire. I have carried on knitting in the back of the vehicle while nearby gunfire encouraged the traffic to move faster.          

Driving into Gojali, on the outskirts of eastern Mosul

We hear heavy weapon usage throughout our visits, but the action is still 5-10km from where we are. I was close to the city this week training some Mosul locals in household assessment techniques, and the noise from the current battle for western Mosul was fierce. Look out for a future blog on the challenges faced when teaching rote learners survey techniques.

The eastern suburbs of the city that we visited have similar levels of damage to many of the surrounding villages we work in. Almost all, if not all buildings have been damaged by heavy fighting, including artillery and airstrikes. Perhaps 15-25% of buildings have been completely destroyed and I saw very few intact windows. Some suburbs have been hit much harder than others – I learned yesterday that two suburbs I visited were retaken in a battle lasting approximately 72h, whilst a neighbouring suburb was fought for over 23 days. As you would expect, the damage from longer battles is much more severe. Although officially liberated, eastern Mosul is still dangerous. There is a known tactic of the OAG to hide when an area is retaken and to then reappear and cause chaos with violence 10 days - 2 weeks later. Recently there has been a massive increase in the number of drones the OAG is using to drop mortars and grenades in the retaken areas. The OAG targets gatherings, so any obvious distribution of emergency relief is a risk. A number of distributions and NGO convoys have already been hit.

A family, displaced by violence were living in this truck.

There are other reasons for NGOs to avoid distributions in eastern Mosul too.  Since the markets are up and running, NGOs distributing goods from outside Mosul has a negative impact on local businesses. However, not all NGOs can easily offer cash support rather than goods. It’s a hard situation when people’s needs are so desperate and there is no quick or ‘right’ way to meet them. The markets provide a sense of normality, even with military personnel, vehicles and weapons being visible everywhere. It’s incredible how quickly life begins again after such severe violence and such a long period of heavily restricted life. The existence of the markets shows that some people have money to purchase items for sale or the capacity to have grown produce, but very few people have sufficient money to buy enough food, or sufficient variety and quality of food for a healthy diet.

Do you have any questions that I haven't answered?