Middle East analyst in the BBC
The historic building of Mosul, including the church and the temple, is resuming after years of devastation due to the acquisition of Iraq by the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.
The project, organized and funded by UNESCO, began a year after the defeat and kicked out of the city in northern Iraq in 2017.
Iraqi Prime Minister Audrey Azoulay and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia, Mohammed Shia, are attending the event to announce their resumption on Wednesday.
There will also be local craftsmen, residents and representatives of all religious communities of Mosul.
In 2014, for centuries, mosques were occupied as a symbol of tolerance and coexistence between other religions and national communities in Iraq.
The group imposed an extreme ideology on the city to target minorities and kill opponents.
Three years later, the United States Support Union, which was associated with the militia connected to the Iraqi army, made an intense basis and air attack to control the city again. The most bloody battle was focused on the old town that the group’s fighter took the last position.
Mosul photographer Ali Al-Baroodi recalls the fear that he greeted him when he first entered the area shortly after the battle of the street star in the summer of 2017.
He saw the gloriously distorted Al-Hardba Minaret, known as the “Hensch bag” known as the symbolic ruins of Mosul for hundreds of years.
“It was like a ghost village,” he said. “The dead body, the surrounding corpse, the sick smell and the terrible scene, and the skyline without Hadba Minaret.
“It wasn’t the city we knew -it was like a pervert -we didn’t even imagine the worst nightmare. I didn’t have silent for a few days. I lost my voice. I lost my heart.”
80 %of Old City Mosul in TIGRIS’s western banks were destroyed during the three years of IS.
It was the community spirit of those who lived there for a long time with relative harmony between churches, temples and old houses to be repaired.
The huge task of reconstruction began with the sponsorship of UNESCO, and it began with a budget of $ 11 million (9.3 million pounds), which attacked many in the United Arab Emirates and the European Union.
Dominica Priest Olivier Porkilon is to supervise one of the main buildings of Notre -Dame de L ‘Heure, known as Al -Saa’a, founded almost 200 years ago. I came back to Mosul. .
“We first started gathering teams. Team -Christians and Muslims worked together, the teams of the other denominations of other denominations worked together.”
Father Poquillon says that gathering communities is the biggest challenge and the biggest achievement.
“If you want to rebuild the building first to rebuild your trust, if you don’t rebuild your trust, it’s useless to reconstruct the walls of the building.”
It was the main architect of Maria Rita Acetoso, who came to Mosul, who was in charge of the restoration of 124 old houses and especially the restoration of two great mansions.
“This project shows that culture can also create jobs, encourage technology development, and show that people in related people can feel some of the things that are meaningful,” she says.
She hopes to enable reconstruction to restore hope and to restore people’s cultural identity and memory.
“I think this is particularly important for the younger generations who grow up in conflict and political instability,” she added.
UNESCO says more than 1,300 local young people have been trained with traditional technology and have created about 6,000 new jobs.
More than 100 classrooms have been renovated in Mosul. Thousands of historical sculptures were restored and catalogs were made from debris.
30%of many engineers related to reconstruction were women.
Eight years later, this species is ringing again at the Al-Tahara Church.
Other major landmarks of Mosul have also been restored. A complex of Al-Hadba’s Minaret, Dominican Al-Saa’a Convent and Al-Nouri Mosque.
And people were able to return to their homes for centuries.
One resident, Mustafa, said:
“So I decided to move to my parents’ house. I was very happy to see the house again.”
Abdullah’s family also lived in the old town’s house since the 19th century, when the area was the center of wool transactions. So he says that the house is so precious.
“I came back after UNESCO rebuilt my house,” he said. “I can’t explain the feeling I feel because I thought I could not come back and live again after seeing all the destruction there.”
Just as many parts of Iraq are in an easy -to -break state, the scars of what the Mosul people have endured have not been healed yet.
But in debris, old -fashioned regeneration indicates hope for a better future. ALI AL -BAROODI continues to record the evolution of your beloved house every day.
“This is like seeing a dead person living again in a very beautiful way. It’s the true spirit of the city.”
