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    In Mosul, Grim Homecomings And A Struggle To Survive In A City Now Free From ISIS

    Civil defense workers have recovered more than 1,400 bodies of civilians in west Mosul. Relatives are searching for the bodies of loved ones in a landscape so devastated they can barely recognize it.
    by Jane Arraf Jul 21, 2017 5 minutes
    Manal Idrees, a former resident of west Mosul, returns to the Old City on a grim mission to try to find the body of her son. She says he was beheaded by ISIS because his uncles were police officers.

    Manal Idrees looks out the car window in shock at the streets of her neighborhood in the oldest part of Mosul, reduced to chunks of concrete and tangled metal.

    She fled when ISIS moved in three years ago. Although she has seen images of the destruction after Iraqi forces retook Mosul two weeks ago, experiencing it in person is staggering.

    "It's ruined — all ruined," she says as we drive by streets where not a single building is left standing. "Mosul is gone. Iraq is gone."

    And then she starts to sob for the son she lost: "All the beautiful young men are gone."

    Idrees has come back on a unimaginably painful mission — to try to find the body of her 26-year-old son, Wissam. He was beheaded by ISIS 2 1/2 months ago.

    Idrees says he was killed because his uncles were police officers.

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