View this post on Instagram Tens of thousands of children in Iraq lost their parents under ISIS rule or the battle against it. Nour, a 10-year-old whose favorite game used to be pretending to be a princess, is one of them. She stopped playing make-believe last July, after her family and neighbors tried to escape Mosul’s besieged Old City, where ISIS was making its last stand. As they dodged bullets, an ISIS suicide bomber ran at them. Nour’s parents, her little sister, 6 cousins, 6 aunts and uncles and her grandmother were killed. Her surviving relatives, a great-aunt and her 21-year-old married sister, found her at a field hospital. Her great-aunt spent the family’s meager life savings on 2 operations to help Nour regain the use of her arms. But this spring, when her family enrolled her in school, Nour’s classmates and teachers laughed at the claw-like appearance of her burned hands. Now, Nour spends her day helping with chores. Her favorite toy is a stuffed Mickey Mouse. She prefers that over pretty dolls. “It’s hard to pretend like that,” said Nour, who was photographed by @andreadicenzo. “I’m not beautiful like them.” | Children like Nour are at risk of being forgotten casualties of the war in Iraq. Visit the link in our profile to read more. A post shared by The New York Times (@nytimes) on Sep 4, 2018 at 5:42pm PDT
Tens of thousands of children in Iraq lost their parents under ISIS rule or the battle against it. Nour, a 10-year-old whose favorite game used to be pretending to be a princess, is one of them. She stopped playing make-believe last July, after her family and neighbors tried to escape Mosul’s besieged Old City, where ISIS was making its last stand. As they dodged bullets, an ISIS suicide bomber ran at them. Nour’s parents, her little sister, 6 cousins, 6 aunts and uncles and her grandmother were killed. Her surviving relatives, a great-aunt and her 21-year-old married sister, found her at a field hospital. Her great-aunt spent the family’s meager life savings on 2 operations to help Nour regain the use of her arms. But this spring, when her family enrolled her in school, Nour’s classmates and teachers laughed at the claw-like appearance of her burned hands. Now, Nour spends her day helping with chores. Her favorite toy is a stuffed Mickey Mouse. She prefers that over pretty dolls. “It’s hard to pretend like that,” said Nour, who was photographed by @andreadicenzo. “I’m not beautiful like them.” | Children like Nour are at risk of being forgotten casualties of the war in Iraq. Visit the link in our profile to read more.
A post shared by The New York Times (@nytimes) on Sep 4, 2018 at 5:42pm PDT