a Heartbreaking tour of Mosul Former capital of ISIS in Iraq
morning my friends, from mosul, the third largest city in iraq, the big city in the north, and uh recently famous for being under the yoke of isis during three years, and it was also the capital city for some time of isis, so in this video let's go to explore uh the old city of mosul, which actually suffered a lot from the war, and just behind me actually you can see a huge mosque, they started building it under saddam, but then it was stopped... the construction was stopped because of the american invasion in 2003, and it only resumed very recently and on my way to the old city, which is this way, there is a replica of the gate of babylon and there is an amusement park as well, well the amusement park is empty because it's friday, so i think yeah i think the old city is going to be quite... well the entire city is going to be quiet, so it's a probably a good day to explore the destroyed part of the old city, and uh we will do the alive parts of the city in another video, and on the way we have to cross the tigris river, once again a river that uh saw the oldest civilizations in the world, and you can see uh, here you can see on the shores, on this side, i don't know if you can really see, it's a bit far for you, but we can see all the ruins of the old city basically and that's the mighty tigris river, and uh and as you see they are rebuilding the bridges because basically during the war between uh between the iraqi army, helped by uh the americans and the french i think, when they attacked isis here to retake the control... to retake the control of mosul, over mosul, uh yeah during this war, all the bridges were destroyed, all the bridges over the tigris, so that's why they have to be rebuilt, but the work is in process as you can see, there they are building the second part and this part is already built maybe we'll get some food first because it's been like 24 hours i didn't eat, and i'm hungry wow that's terrible it's really painful to see that always, it reminds me of aleppo or homs, more homs okay it seems that we arrive at an area with a little bit of activity so hopefully... how are you, good good thank you yeah so hopefully around here we can find some some food camera i think in front, there is some food oh and there there is something, because i'm tired of showing you always the exact same food, so i'm gonna try to do something else than the sandwich i always show you look at this truck, oh my god, and it looks like we have some iraqi pizzas oh samalikum we have some like iraqi style pizzas here, so maybe let's see if if they do it, look at that eat, food, yeah this how much or 1000 or 2000 Dinars 2000 let's sit here so what i ordered is a kind of... it's similar to a man'oushe, you know the lebanese style
pizza, but it's the iraqi version, so it's an iraqi style pizza i'd say so here i have... because he proposed me one thousand or two thousand, so i guess two thousand is the big one, so i have a giant iraqi style pizza, let's try it i never know how to eat it very good, very light thin dough, very good okay this one is not a food video so okay guys, let's dive into the old city of mosul now, so the first thing that surprised me when i uh when i came to the old city for the first time yesterday, is when i checked the map, basically i saw a lot of churches on the map, and i was like wow... i did not expect it, and actually well until very recently, mosul was a very uh, a very mixed city, well until the 50s, you had like uh, you had also a lot of jews, but the jewish people left in the early 50s but then until very recently, it was a very big community of christian assyrians, assyrian people here, christian assyrian, because actually mosul was... or just very nearby, well in the outskirts of mosul, you have uh the remains of nineveh, of what was the capital of the assyrian empire 2500, 3 000 years ago, something like that, it was even at that time, during a few decades, niniveh was the biggest city in the world but since then a lot of things changed, you can see all the bullet holes in there, in the wall, oh my god see the doors well everything is in bad shape here, hello first time for you... first time for me here you live here... my name is maryam, maria
Maria ? Maryam, oh Maryam, okay and she is my daughter her name is tasnim what is your name, yves nice to meet you you lived here during... when isis was here, yes three years, for three years, so you had to stay inside the house most of the time, no you want, you want to see... no i was asking you what were you doing when isis was here, no i just go to shopping... just go to shopping and that's all... with my daughter
see you later i'm a bad interviewer, i don't know what to say burn cars you see all the windows, the windows are gone and just in front we have a very famous minaret so this minaret was a big leaning minaret that was famous, that was representing mosul i think well if it's this one, it looks like it's this one, i don't know but yeah it was a leaning minaret that was kind of representative of mosul but it was destroyed, it was also destroyed during the war, like most parts of the old mosul so yeah i remember i was talking to you about the assyrians because of the churches yes actually until isis took the city, the city was... jewish people has all had already left, but the city was still very diverse, it was a mix between arabs, kurds and assyrian people you can see a beautiful mosque here, nice old mosque being restored, yeah it was a mix between uh arabs kurds and assyrian people, but uh well sadly during the... well since uh the three years of life under the yoke of isis here, uh most of christian people have left, and yeah so basically what surprised me when i saw the map of the city was that right in the center of the old city you have four churches, but uh now they're all destroyed, and uh and most christians left, so i think only one still does the service but um all the others are just destroyed, i think there are still a few families, a few christian families living around here, but most christians have left, or those who didn't leave before isis came were killed by isis, okay so let's go to explore now i think we are right where a church was oh my god i guess the christians and the muslims, that's the yazidis yeah it seems... i think this mural represents the the religions present in the region, because yeah, not far from here, mosul is not far from duhok, from where i was uh maybe two months ago, and and near duhok, well between mosul and duhok you have lalish, which is the holiest place for yazidis, which is a monotheistic, it's an abrahamic monotheistic religion which is very rare, it's only in the region, and uh i don't know if you know but they were heavily persecuted by isis, and i wonder if that's that's a tower remaining from a church, because this is supposed to be a church hello how are you my house oh, this is your house ... old oh, church here oh, there a church okay i walk, i walk around so he confirmed that uh this was a church, uh he said also this was a church so i guess... as you can see there is no much left... oh here here here we have the door, here we obviously have the door of a church wow that's insane, oh my god, and look at this beautiful old door as well there is something written in arabic, and there is something on top of the arabic, there is something written in syriac i think, i think that the syriac alphabet yeah you can see, that's a church but the the roof is missing so obviously it's all locked because uh, there are four churches, there are four big churches in the center of mosul, and all of them were used, look at that yeah all of them were used as administrative headquarters by isis, they were destroyed, used as headquarters, and um and they are... inside it's still... from what i heard it might be still dangerous
because uh, when they left, they left a lot of devices, of explosive devices that... so some of them might still be inside, that's why it's important never to go in the abandoned buildings here in mosul, because they could be dangerous, and look at that oh my god and there is something here if you can see, i cannot see hello you can really feel that this city has suffered a lot, through... well there is the buildings, all the destruction, that is already of course very shocking, but also you can see the people, everywhere else in iraq, people are very welcoming and when they see me with the camera they talk, and they smile, nothing works i guess here, the situation is terrible, people are very poor, but still when they see you, they smile and they are happy to see you, and you have a good time, and here you can really see that basically there is no smile, people just don't smile and destruction and destruction and destruction everywhere so as you can see just in front, that's a church, so that's a mosque and that's a church restored by the unesco, okay so i don't know uh, the church everything seemed closed, so did not try to enter, there was a lot of army guys also uh around around the church, i guess for the security, and that's a dead end okay, um yes i will not try to enter, but that church that you briefly saw, i think that's the one where the pope... that the pope came to visit... they are rebuilding the church, i think the unesco is rebuilding the church and uh, and it's dangerous basically, let's see, as you can see there are security cameras everywhere and that's one of the entrances of the church, you can see the cross, so it's written in arabic english and french, and you can see that's all the devices, potential explosive devices that are inside the church, you see you could have explosive devices in the teddy bears an old assyrian church, i think it is.. i read that uh assyrian people
uh the christians here in the region are here since the first century, so they are among the first uh, the first christians here, they were among the first christians and another mural trying to repair multiculturalism here but i guess that's how multi-culturalism is here it's very sad because i think it takes a very long time to build trust, to make that multiculturalism can work, to make that it has a chance to work but sadly, you just need a few crazy people to to destroy centuries of work, in just a few years and to destroy multiculturalism basically hello hello how are you, praise be to god do you see how the walls are bent wow, these... so many houses are on the verge of collapsing, okay i don't really know what to tell you anymore, so let's just walk to the banks of the tigris, and let's just finish the video there it's really disturbing to see that endless destruction what is written here danger, danger do not enter uh, so does that mean do not enter the buildings or does that mean do not enter the street, oh my god look at that well i guess i don't want to be the latest uh victim of isis, so i will not enter the street, and just be cautious and i willfinish the video here, so yeah that's it for this uh quite disturbing visit of mosul, of the old city of mosul, and uh see you for the next... see you for the next adventures guys, ciao so here i have a few men who want to... they want to be filmed, let's see the
this is masgouf, no... masgouf ! very nice, how are you... beautiful very good, yeah yes okay how are you so this is masgouf masgouf good i don't understand, but okay, okay thank you, my name is yves, okay, and you... my name is Tayda okay, bye thank you bye, okay that was a small additional part of the video, but the market is, as you see, it's completely deserted, it's empty so... because it's friday,
so we're gonna come back another day to do the video with people here in mosul
2022-07-05 01:51
