Digging Up the Dead: Probing the Ruins of Mosul

“This is the other arm. Was she wearing a black abaya?” Daoud Salem Mahmoud shouted as he lifted the bone from the rubble and held it out to the small group looking on. A piece of cloth still clung to the sinews. “This one is a black abaya.”

Mr. Mahmoud and a small band of men had picked carefully through the remains of a demolished city street of Mosul, digging through personal belongings and the crumbled walls of family homes.

The work was slow and laborious. They were searching for the dead.