Iraqi farmers desperate to go home as cattle perish

MOSUL: In a field off a main road south of Mosul, a stray dog picked at the body of a dead buffalo calf, part of an exhausted herd brought 20 miles on foot by farmers forced to abandon their land in the fight against Daesh.

The men and their families fled Badush, to the northwest of Mosul, some two weeks ago as the Iraqi Army and Shiite paramilitary forces fought Daesh militants.

The cattle the farmers have managed to salvage and thousands more left in their village untended will soon perish if they do not move home soon, they say.

So far, attempts at return have been blocked.

Army officials and the Shiite forces now in control of Badush say it is not safe for residents to live there.

The farmers insist it is, and suspect political motives or sectarian score- settling by Shiite militias in an area where Daesh executed hundreds of Shiites in 2014.

Either way, the effect of war on their livestock, and livelihood, could be equally devastating.

“You can see the animals are beginning to starve. There is no proper food for them here and the water they are drinking is dirty. Several of the younger ones have died,” farmer Zuheir, 32, said pointing toward the calf’s carcass.

Several dozen buffaloes drank from and bathed in the nearest source of water, a stagnant pool polluted with petrol.