MOSUL: A man rides a scooter cart along a damaged street in the western part of Iraq's northern city of Mosul. - AFP

AL-KHAZER: Her
tent is bare, she's unemployed and her family relies on food donations. But
Nihaya Issa was forced to pick an Iraqi camp over the unliveable ruins of her
native city Mosul. The northern city was freed from the Islamic State jihadist
group's grip more than two years ago, but tens of thousands of Iraqis who fled
Mosul into sprawling displacement camps have yet to move back home. Many, like
Issa, say they tried returning but were shocked by what they saw.

"When I went
back to Mosul I didn't find my house. It was destroyed," said Issa,
speaking from her stuffy tent in the Khazer camp about 30 kilometers east of
Mosul. "I also couldn't afford renting a house, so I came back to this
camp again," she told AFP, clapping her hands in exasperation. Dark
circles have formed under her eyes, and the widow and mother of eight girls
said she and her children "live a tough life" in Khazer. But the
33-year-old feels she has little choice. "We stay in the camp because of
the food rations we get every 30 to 40 days," she admitted.

Across Iraq, more
than 1.6 million people remain displaced, among them nearly 300,000 from Mosul
alone, according to the International Organization for Migration. They are
spread out across a handful of displacement camps in the broader Nineveh
province that have developed into fully-fledged tent cities. Amenities provided
by NGOs include schools and training centers, health clinics and shops,
football fields and hair salons - all mostly unavailable in Mosul and other
towns ravaged by IS and the ensuing fighting.

'My house was
unlivable'

Ghazwan Hussein,
26, hails from Sinjar, a region west of Mosul that was overrun by IS five years
ago as it waged a brutal campaign against the district's Yazidi minority. The
father of four fled the region to the Khazer camp, where he eked out a living
until his son fell ill a few months ago. He sold his meagre belongings in the
camp to afford the required surgery and tried to return to Sinjar. "I
found that my house was unliveable. It was demolished and the area didn't have
basic services," said Hussein, his toddler perched quietly on his lap
outside their tent. "I couldn't stay and came back to Khazer once
again."

Only a sliver of
Sinjar's native population of 500,000 Yazidis has returned, with the rest
saying persistent destruction, the lack of services and the tense security
situation have kept them in camps. Hussein said the Iraqi government should
speed up reconstruction efforts and compensate displaced citizens. "Does
it make sense to keep us in the camp without work for three years, as if in
jail?" he asked. "We just eat, sleep, and live on food baskets
without any hope the situation will improve so we can go home."

Mosul's migration
office said up to 25 families a day are leaving their destroyed homes to return
to displacement camps to access better services. "For the past 18 months,
we have also seen 'reverse migration' back to the camps or to the Kurdish region,"
said office head Khaled Ismail. "The reasons for reverse displacement are
varied according to the regions: it might be tied to the security situation,
the family's financial conditions or the fact that their destroyed homes are
unsuitable for living."

'Not a life'

According to the
migration office, about 72,000 families have returned to Nineveh since the
fighting against IS ended two years ago. Many are returning to the eastern side
of Mosul, which was left more intact when fighting ended and where returning
residents find restaurants and shops reopening. But across the Tigris River in
the Old City, mountains of rubble still seal off many streets and unexploded
ordnance, rocket remnants, and even decomposing bodies lie under ruined homes.
For the most desperate families, those ruins will have to do.

IOM says nearly
30,000 returnees in Mosul are living in vulnerable conditions including
destroyed homes, schools and other public buildings - the highest number of any
location in Iraq.  Shaking from a medical
condition, Sabiha Jassem made her way through her tiny home, the grimy walls
dotted with bullet holes and flies.  She
and her children could not afford to pay rent in east Mosul and returned to
their home in the ravaged Old City. "This house is a danger to us - its
roof and walls could collapse. But we're poor and have no other solution but to
live in it," said Jassem, 61. "This is not a life we are living
here."- AFP