Tragic images from inside the University of Mosul - a recently-liberated ISIS stronghold
Once milling with over 30,000 students and 4,200 faculty members, the University entrance is now a scorched husk, a shadow of its former eminence.
Despite ISIS occupation, the University remained at least partly open and functioning throughout the period. "For us law students at Mosul University, our only dream when we left high school was to go to Mosul University," Kawkab Salman Kawkab, a law student, told the Associated Press in 2016. "It is an esteemed university, known globally and regionally. People speak of it wherever you go."
Life studying under the extreme militant group was hard, one student recounted the "horrifying and disturbing" time he was stopped by ISIS soldiers to witness a public beheading on his way home from the shops.
Source: BBC.
Students were also at risk from coalition-led bombings. In March last year, VICE News reported that 25 civilians had been killed in air strikes that had annihilated large parts of the University.
Source: VICE News.
In an effort to quell any sentiment that opposed the regime's ideology, ISIS shut down courses such as philosophy and politics — medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy were the only subjects to remain untouched.
Sources: BBC and Al Jazeera.
Academics who had links with the west or the Iraqi government were executed, university statues were smashed and thousands of rare books and manuscripts were destroyed.
Sources: BBC and The Independent.
By 2015, the university's laboratories were being utilised by ISIS scientists and engineers to manufacture chemical bombs and suicide vests. These empty shells are believed to have been used by the militants to create bombs.
Source: Wall Street Journal.
With ISIS pushed out of eastern Mosul, many who worked or attended the university are looking to return. "We are ready to do everything to rebuild our university," professor and chancellor Abay Saied al-Dewachi told Al Jazeera.
"For these Iraqi special forces, recapturing Mosul University was a symbolic victory," CBS correspondent Charlie D'Agata reported in late January.
According to Al Jazeera, dozens of students celebrated the university's liberation by gathering at its gates and waving flags and banners — they read: "We want to rebuild the university, thanks to our security forces injustice is over."
Source: Al Jazeera.
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