Daunting search for remains in Mosul rubble

MOSUL, Iraq — The streets of Mosul’s Old City are littered with bodies, tangled between remnants of the lives they left behind.

In the baking summer heat, exhausted rescue crews are now sifting through the debris of the toughest battle against the Islamic State in what became its final redoubt in the city.

As Iraqi ground troops, U.S.-led coalition jets and Islamic State militants pulverized the Old City last week, thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire.

But the area is now deserted. Its inhabitants evacuated to houses, camps or prison cells across the province in recent months.

A week after Iraqi officials declared victory in Mosul, all that remains in the Old City is rubble and unknown hundreds of bodies.

Aid groups say that thousands of civilians were killed in the ninemonth offensive. A final death toll is unlikely to ever be known.

Across western Mosul, hundreds of families are still waiting for news. Others know exactly where their loved ones were killed but are still unable to reach them.

On Friday, Sumaya Sarhan, 48, waited in the rescue workers’ sun-parched yard for her brother’s remains, three months after the airstrike that killed him.

“We lived opposite and tried so many times to get him out. But it was too dangerous, there was too much fighting. Today, I finally saw him pulled from the rubble.”

Staring resolutely forward, for a moment Sarhan looked lost amid the bustle of the workers around her. Then she started to cry.

“He’s just bones. Just bones,” she said.

Mosul’s Old City had more than 5,000 buildings, many of them high-ceilinged houses built around traditional courtyards.

Almost a third were damaged or destroyed during the final three weeks of fighting, according to the United Nations.

Work has been slowed by a lack of funding. Lt. Col. Rabia Ibrahim Hassan, who leads Mosul’s civil defense team, said he had asked authorities for more equipment.

“Our men are doing this work with practically nothing. Just a bulldozer, a forklift truck and small equipment. The work continues, but we are exhausted,” he said.