Initial scoping survey of the environmental damage caused by ISIS around Mosul.
Two weeks after the Iraqi Government declared the liberation of Mosul on 9 July 2017, UN Environment deployed staff to Iraq to design and plan with the Environment Ministry an environmental assessment of the city and surrounding areas. Iraq’s second or third largest city (estimates vary) with a pre-conflict population of around 1.4 million people, Mosul is today at the centre of one of the world’s largest and most complex humanitarian operations with over one million displaced persons. An important commercial and industrial hub, Mosul is also where environmental impacts are considered to be of greatest concern given the high level of infrastructure destruction, the large number of hazardous sources, and the potential size of the exposed population.
