No peace, no war

The first time I came to Iraq was August 2014. ISIS had just swept across the country and Mosul city was their new 'capital' within Iraq. The sea of people who had been displaced from Mosul city and it's surrounds was overwhelming.

For the next 2 and a half years, periodically the discussion would come up around the re-capture of Mosul, the 'Mosul offensive'. Dates were bandied around, we all kept our eyes on the frontlines and for 18 months they barely moved. A huge trench was dug and it was a bit of a stand off between the two sides. Then Sinjar was re-captured and people celebrated such a historic moment in the streets. But after Sinjar we faced almost a year of very little movement of the frontlines again.

And then, in August 2016 the Mosul offensive finally started in earnest. Political wranglings took place as different groups weighed in with their money, their soldiers, their expertise; and demanded the right to influence the control of land re-captured. Finally something was happening. The areas around the city took a long time to re-capture, and are still not fully 'clear'. But in-roads to the city were made, and a few months ago the assault on Eastern Mosul began. A couple of weeks ago, Eastern Mosul was declared fully re-captured, and the offensive on Western Mosul began. This is expected to be the toughest part of the campaign.

This week I went on my first visit to Eastern Mosul. Two and a half years after my first encounters with those who had fled, I was able to walk the streets of this city that has become a bit of a legendary word around here. To say it felt surreal is an understatement. Not a single building is unscathed. The fight had clearly been literally street by street. As we drove and walked through streets I kept having flashbacks to the early news segments coming out of this crisis when we would see pictures of ISIS walking these same streets as they laid claim to the area. 

Despite seeing intense fighting, ongoing suicide strikes, drone explosive drops and indirect fire hits; there were a lot of people still in the city. Children were playing among the rubble in the streets, and shop keepers were beginning to pick up the pieces of their shops and put them back together, re-laying tiles on the floors and re-stocking items. Fruit and veg stalls had already re-opened and we saw sandwich shops up and running. These are all the signs of a city coming out of hiding. On the outskirts of the city an open air market was swarming with people purchasing all sorts of goods. I say purchasing, really it's more likely to be a credit-based system at this point - there is reported to be very little physical liquidity in the city.

Seeing Mosul City with my own eyes this week was a milestone for me and my work in Iraq. It took me literally days to recover emotionally from that single visit. I cried a lot in solitude this week. The media is portraying this as a fight between good and evil. But it's so much more complicated than that. And there is so much work to do, and an unknown future ahead. It's easy for us to fall for the lie that once ISIS is defeated, life will go back to normal. Yes, this is an extremely significant point in this crisis, but we would be naive to think that peace will automatically follow. The retreat of ISIS will not magically mean that things go back to 'normal'. Power vacuums must be filled, and the underlying ethnic tensions in these areas pre-date ISIS. For the last 2 and a half years there has been a common enemy to fight. Once that enemy is defeated, or at least, not as present; it is likely that old issues will re-surface. Not to mention the fact that the country is in economic crisis, the main infrastructure has been destroyed by years of war, and people are likely to remain displaced for a long time to come. 

There's a saying here 'no peace, no war' - people are so used to living in a state of limbo between peace and war. Everyone has a story, everyone has experienced displacement, persecution, violence. Our external security trainers last year, who travel around conflict zones training NGO staff, said they had never experienced training people who are so used to living like this, who when they asked if anyone had ever experienced indirect fire, were immediately shown multiple shrapnel wounds among the staff. When they asked if anyone knew of anyone who had been involved in an abduction, there were several staff right there who had first hand stories. I am so blessed to have been born in a country that in my lifetime has been peaceful. I can't imagine how an entire nation heals from these wounds. And yet, when I think about my friends here, the people I work with, the people I meet through our projects, I realise how resilient they are. This history of no peace, no war, has taught them survival skills that I simply don't have. 

If you want to make a difference for people here please pray for them, give to one of the charities working here that you feel some affiliation to (I'm happy to recommend where to give if you're unsure), and then pray again.