Three thousand corpses remain under rubbles in Mosul’s Old City
An Iraqi man walks past a destroyed tomb of the Prophet Jonah (Nabi Younes) in the eastern side of Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Rubbles from more than eight months of battles between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul are still holding 3000 dead civilians’ bodies beneath, a relief team commander said.
Mohamed Abdul-Sattar al-Hamadani, a commander of the third division of the Iraqi Civil Defense forces, was quoted Wednesday saying that 3000 corpses remain under the rubble in the Old City district. He said 839 new bodies had been extracted from different Mosul areas in three days.
“Some corpses have been run on by tractors during removal of debris, and that is due to volunteers’ ignorance of the correct way of searching for civilians under the rubble,” Hamadani stated.
“We believe there are at least 3000 dead bodies under the rubble, especially in the western side of the Old City. Bab al-Toub and Rajm Hadid neighborhoods had been levelled, and nobody came alive from there,” he added.
The medieval Old City was the birthplace of the Islamic State. It was from its Grand Nuri Mosque that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of the group’s rule in Iraq and Syria.
The Iraqi government said early July it retook full control over Mosul from IS. The military command said more than 1000 civilians were killed in the campaign.