MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi shopkeeper Ahmad Riad is busy
again serving customers at a Mosul market four years after the city was
destroyed in battles against terrorists, but he still awaits war reparations.
اضافة اعلان
"Life has gradually resumed," said Riad, who runs
a shop selling rice, pasta and tins of tomato paste in the Corniche market,
along the banks of the Tigris River.
"But we have not received any compensation from the
government."
Mosul, the country's second city in Nineveh province, was
Daesh’s last major Iraqi bastion between 2014 and 2017.
The city was retaken by the Iraqi army and a US-led
coalition after intense bombardment and fighting that left it in ruins.
The market was "devastated" in the battles, Riad
said, with shopkeepers using their limited savings to rebuild.
"We are the ones who paid," he said.
Of the 400 stalls that once crammed the market, just a tenth
have returned to business, he added.
According to official sources, the cost of reconstruction
for Nineveh would top $100 billion, a staggering sum for a country mired in an
economic crisis.
It outstrips the total annual budget of oil-rich Iraq, which
stands at nearly $90 billion in 2021.
Many buildings are still in ruins, their facades dotted with
bullet holes and piles of rubble lie strewn all around.
100,000 claims, 2,600 paid
When Pope Francis visited Mosul last March, he held a mass
with the partially collapsed walls of the centuries-old church behind him.
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to
visit Mosul, a day after attending a regional summit in the Iraqi capital
Baghdad, some 355km to the south.
Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, is a melting pot of
diverse ethnic communities and was once one of the key cities on the Middle
East trade route, lying close to both Turkey and Syria.
Ammar Hussein runs a restaurant.
"The government should compensate the merchants who
suffered damage so that they can
rebuild their stores and the market can return
to its former glory," he said.
The list of claims is long.
Some 100,000 claims have been filed by those who suffered
damage during "liberation operations", according to Mahmoud Al-Akla,
director of Nineveh's compensation department.
Not even three percent have been paid: While more than
65,000 files have been examined, just 2,600 claimants have received cash, he
said.
On top of that, the centralized nature of the Iraqi state —
and the graft-riddled bureaucracy that governs it — means that disbursements
are paid out extremely slowly.
Mosul district chairman Zuhair Al-Araji blames officials in
Baghdad.
Promises as elections approach
Progress is patchy.
While 80 percent of basic infrastructure such as sewers and
roads have been restored, only around a third of health facilities have been
rebuilt, according to Araji.
Mosul resident Saad Ghanem filed a claim for his destroyed
home.
"As far as I know, the compensation department in
Nineveh finalized the transaction and then submitted it to the government in
Baghdad," he said. "They still have not compensated us."
Mosul, a Sunni Muslim city, did not take part in October
2019 popular protests decrying corruption and government misuse of power in
Baghdad, as well as much of the country's Shiite south.
Residents said they feared the benefit of reconstruction
could be wiped out by the unrest.
With parliamentary elections in two months, the slow pace of
reconstruction prompted Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi to visit earlier this
month.
Kadhemi said he was "sorry" to see the problems,
ordering a committee to draw up an "action plan".
At his wooden furniture store, carpenter Ali Mahmoud said he
is exhausted.
"I hope to rebuild my workshop, which was my livelihood,
and return here," he said. "But I don't have enough money."
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