COLLECTOR
Nurse on grim mission to clear bodies from the city devastated by horror of IS
sister’s body transferred to east Mosul for burial in a cemetery.
Nibras became the first body to be taken across, and the deal was only done because Suroor agreed to help treat Iraqi army wounded.
Under three years of IS occupation Suroor regularly got into arguments with the fanatics, who banned her from running her own medical centre. Before her father died he told her the work she was doing to treat the injured was the best revenge.
And she felt the same about collecting bodies. She went to one official organisation after another to get them to do it but all came up with reasons not to.
So that’s when she offered to
Nuroor in ruins where bodies lie buried help, and has been doing until just a few weeks ago when Mosul’s governor finally stopped her.
She says she doesn’t know why other than his embarrassment.
Whatever the reason, she says they have finally acted and in six days exhumed 1,500 bodies. She adds proudly: “I made this happen.”
Mosul still fights for its future since the battle was won. Hospitals have been devastated, schools too, and most of all minds – tormented by the horrors of IS rule.
On a street we find a group of boys playing with a smashed water pipe who show us an altogether different kind of game.
Hassan, 14, tells us: “We found the IS fighter and set him on fire.
“I watched him burn. I could smell him. But I have seen bodies before, five or six, and there are more inside,” he adds, pointing to the rubble pile close by his damaged home.
Then a tiny five-year-old who shouldn’t even know such things chimes in: “My father also burnt an IS man.”
Next we meet volunteers who work for authorities. I’m shown debris where a husband identified nine bodies, including six children, and said: “This is my family.”
Volunteer Marthad Alnajan tells me: “His daughter was wearing a gold ring with the name of her husband inside. His body was beside her’s. The father cried.”
emily.retter@trinitymirror.com Charities Oxfam and UNICEF are helping people in Iraq rebuild their lives. Donate at
The smell was so strong and sometimes the bodies split but it did not scare me SUROOR AL-HUSSAINI NURSE WHO TOOK ON HORRIFIC ROLE
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