This article is from the source 'rtcom' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.rt.com/news/414134-mosul-city-of-dead-murad/

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
City of the dead: Mosul death toll continues to grow months after liberation (VIDEO) ‘Stench of countless decaying bodies everywhere’:  RT reports from Mosul months after victory
(about 9 hours later)
The liberation of Mosul from ISIS came at a high cost, with the death toll continuing to rise as piles of civilian and terrorist corpses are pulled from the rubble daily, RT has discovered on a visit to the destroyed city. Six months on, what was once Iraq’s second-largest city remains a mass grave after its recapture from ISIS, with the overwhelming smell of decay befouling the air.
Mosul still reeks of death nearly six months after Iraqi forces aided US-led air strikes “liberated” the city from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in July. The source of the city-wide stench are bodies that are rotting under the rubble, RT’s Murad Gazdiev said. Victory over Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) was declared in late July. Five months on from its recapture, Iraq’s once-second-largest city Mosul remains a mass grave with the overwhelming smell of decay still befouling the air.
Almost entirely obliterated as a result of eight months of continued air raids, the true magnitude of the disaster in Mosul has yet to be fully realized. Up to 11,000 people perished during the campaign to drive IS out of the city – a third of whom are estimated to have been killed by US-led coalition and Iraqi airstrikes, the findings of a latest AP investigation said. Local doctors, however, say the death toll is significantly higher. The victory came after nine months of artillery shelling and airstrikes, turning most of Mosul into rubble. The death toll was 11,000, according to the latest estimate by AP, and may be much higher, officials on the ground told RT.
A senior health official in the destroyed city showed the RT crew a book containing some of the casualty tallies. “This book alone contains 7000 dead bodies. I have four or five of these,” said the officer who refused to speak on camera. “Every day we got 2 or 3 more bodies – victims of new explosions.” READ MORE: 'None of this was worth it': Up to 11,000 civilians killed in battle to free Mosul, AP probe reveals
“These could be from anything: An ISIS booby-trap. An unexploded Iraqi shell. Or a bomb dropped by the US-led coalition during the battle months ago,” he added. Even an approximate number of the lives lost cannot yet be established. Unquestionably, many corpses of militants and civilians are still buried under the rubble, with Iraqi authorities struggling to recover them. The process is further slowed by the many undetonated explosives littering the ruins, from devices improvised by IS to the industrial bombs and shells that were dropped on them.
Mosul 360°: Rubble and ruins from Iraqi military op against ISIS Naturally, living anywhere near such unsecured areas is dangerous, sometimes fatal. Local medics told RT that every day they see two or three dead people killed by booby-traps, collapsing buildings and other hazards.
Visibly exhausted search teams, meanwhile, continue to dig through destroyed buildings looking for corpses. “They cleared away the bodies of civilians that they could see. But they haven’t been able to reach those under collapsed houses,” one of the rescuers told Gazdiev. “Three or four our neighbouring families came here thinking the area was clear – but there were very heavy air strikes. They’re now buried here,” another volunteer pointed. The scale of the chaos in Mosul entails a lack of accountability. But Mosul may well be one of the bloodiest massacres of civilians in recent history, RT’s Murad Gazdiev reported from the devastated city.
“It’s been almost half a year since they declared this a victory. And it was, despite its ugliness. Better this than ISIS,” he conceded. “But no one mentioned the smell.”