In Disputed Iraqi Territory, Rebuilding A City Means Doing It Yourself
For all of the terrible things that have happened to his city of Jalawla in northern Iraq, Yacub Youssef seems like a happy man. Youssef is the sub-district director – essentially the mayor — of this small city just a few miles from Iran and about 90 miles north of Baghdad. ISIS occupied it in […]For all of the terrible things that have happened to his city of Jalawla in northern Iraq, Yacub Youssef seems like a happy man.
Youssef is the sub-district director – essentially the mayor — of this small city just a few miles from Iran and about 90 miles north of Baghdad. ISIS occupied it in 2014, a few days after it took over Mosul. When the ISIS fighters were driven out two months later, Jalawla was left in ruins.
"I called Diyala [authorities] and they said, 'We can't help you.' The Kurdish Regional Government said they were going through difficult circumstances, so I had to search for another solution," Youssef says.
