You’ve likely been watching the end-of-days–type battles between Iraqi forces and ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, from the comfort of your living room. Even from there, it’s been difficult to watch.
Now, imagine you’re in a Humvee, touring the remnants of the city, unsure of what you’ll find, see, or hear around the next corner.
That’s what New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi experienced in Western Mosul this past Monday, along with Iraqi troops.
Found along the way: a sword used by ISIS for public beheadings; a picture of Donald Duck at a school, with its face spray-painted over (ISIS is anti-everything Western, so they blotted out the icon); handmade, unspent mortar shells; a child’s backpack filled with C4 explosive powder in it; and of course, dead bodies.
Callimachi also tweeted out a short, 14-tweet story with images and reports from the war zone. Here is her account in its entirety:
2. In West Mosul, where a once-beautiful city park looks like this, we were introduced to 1 of only Christians who stayed during ISIS’ rule pic.twitter.com/k6DsM6ipnB
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
3. She described how they announced on the mosque speaker that Christians needed to convert, leave, or else pay a jizya, or religious tax
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
4. A Shariah judge forced her to convert by reciting the shahada, which states “There is no God except God & Mohamed is his messenger” pic.twitter.com/lcjKSdzn1u
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
5. She was given a signed & stamped form titled “Proof of Islam” saying that she had converted. (I cropped it to hide her name & address) pic.twitter.com/HDMAaDrBXm
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
6. When she recited “There’s God but God & Mohamed is his messenger,” in her heart she apologized to the God she’d worshipped as a Christian
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
7. “I was about to cry,” she told me. “Deep inside my heart, I said forgive me God. If I don’t do this I will be killed.”
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
8. At home she continued 2 recite Lord’s Prayer. When ISIS came 2check on her, her Muslim neighbor covered 4her. “She prays w/ us” they said
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
9. She remains so afraid of being discovered by ISIS, she asked me to withhold her name. All she would allow me to photograph were her shoes pic.twitter.com/c4iUvPBQpT
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
10. Also in Western Mosul, I met Lt Col Hussam Jalil Al-Kahwatchy. He’s a veteran of Iran-Iraq war where he was injured. He’s also Christian pic.twitter.com/wSmDgHmNu1
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
11. For 2 months after ISIS took Mosul, he continued living in Mosul. Then his Muslim neighbor got word ISIS was coming for him.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
12. It was al-Kahwatchy’s Muslim neighbor who bundled him into a car at 4 am and drove him past the last ISIS checkpoint to safety: pic.twitter.com/dCYkbdANkL
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
13. At that checkpoint, Kahwatchy saw Christians dispossessed of all their belongings. ISIS has a word for it: Ghanima (war spoils) pic.twitter.com/kLwVvs6xhj
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
14. One of the things that stuck in his mind is the image of an ISIS fighter yanking off the earrings of a Christian child, he said.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 17, 2017
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