EVERYTHING is black here in the heart of darkness.
From children’s hands to livestock to the claustrophobic sky, it is all covered in a thick layer of soot from the fires of hell that keep on burning.
The choking clouds of smoke come from oil wells set ablaze by the Islamic State as Iraqi forces battle to retake Mosul in the military’s biggest operation for years.
Families have endured weeks of bombings and fierce fighting in the streets after state troops backed by allied forces began an operation to wrest back control of the country’s second largest city.
Yellow “suicide trucks” sit smouldering outside homes, with hundreds of families forced to flee as they struggle to breathe, and there is no respite for the parched, with up to 500,000 civilians facing a “catastrophic” drinking water shortage, according to the UN. – READ MORE