Mosul
If you want to understand Mosul, there are worse places to start than a trip to the city’s zoo. After two and a half years of Isis occupation, and months of fighting between the militants and government forces, it is one of the few outdoor attractions still standing in Iraq’s second city.
There is, however, very little to recommend it to the traditional zoo-goer. When I visited recently, there were only two animals there: Simba, a rheumatic lion, and Lula, a watery-eyed bear whose two cubs had been lost to hunger. For all its failings as a family attraction, it is an instructive microcosm of a complicated conflict that is far from over.
Months after the east of Mosul, where the zoo lies, was taken by the Iraqi army, fighting to reclaim the west of the city is still ongoing. But liberation has not brought peace. Millions are still displaced, the government is crippled by corruption and internal rivalries and international relief efforts are hampered by red tape.
For Mosul’s inhabitants – human, ursine and leonine – the future looks bleak.
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