Traders in Old Mosul rebuild market

mosul — Fed up with waiting for assistance from the Iraqi authorities to materialise, traders at the ravaged Bab Al Saray market in Mosul’s Old City are rebuilding their shattered businesses themselves.

After months of silence, the sound of construction work and returning commerce is finally filling the historic district devastated by the months-long battle to force out the Daesh group.

“I was the first to open my shop some two months back after cleaning it up with the help of other traders,” ironmonger Zanoun Younes Rajab, 44, said.

The father of five and neighbouring stallholders had to each fork out 25,000 dinars ($20) just to clear the rubble blocking their street.

In the neighbouring alleys — where grocers and carpenters are looking to start plying their trades again — it is the same story.

The market, part of which dates back over 1,300 years to the time of the Ummayyad caliphate, bears the scars of the fierce fighting that saw Daesh fighters finally kicked out of Iraq’s second city in July.

Shopfronts are blasted, ceilings have caved in, wooden beams are broken, stocks have been plundered.

Under the rubble lie rotting corpses of militants killed in street-to-street clashes or by air strikes from a US-led coalition.

There is not much left intact in what was once one of Mosul’s busiest neighbourhoods.

Gateways leading into the market have been pulverised and accessing some areas remains dangerous because of the threat of unexploded munitions or Daesh booby traps, despite assurances by security officials.

But this has not put off some traders from trying to bring the district back to life.

Builders are busy fixing roofs or mending the shattered pavements.