Citizen returns safekept, priceless manuscripts to Mosul university
The University of Mosul gate.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) A citizen has returned priceless manuscripts to Mosul University after he had kept them in hiding from Islamic State saboteurs, the university said Tuesday.
The returned contents include 700 books and manuscripts which the citizen withheld in safety at his home in Kafa’at neighborhood during Islamic State’s occupation of the city, said the university’s media service.
“He kept the books during Daesh (Islamic State) reign despite dangerous consequences he could have faced for doing it,” said the statement, adding that the man handed them over to the university’s central library.
Iraqi government troops recaptured Mosul University from IS in Mid January before retaking the whole eastern side of the city less than two weeks later. The government said early July it recaptured the western side of Mosul, marking an end to the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed “caliphate”.
Islamic State had used university labs to manufacture chemical weapons, field commanders had said during operations. Classes have reportedly resumed gradually at the campus.
Mosul University, considered Iraq’s second largest after Baghdad University, was established in 1967, and contains nearly 23 colleges.
After their emergence in 2014, Islamic State militants inflicted irreversible damage to Iraqi heritage, most notably ancient sites and antiquities such as those in the Mosul Museum, where fighters filmed themselves axing down priceless statues.