Revive the Spirit of Mosul

The city of Mosul, which means "the linking point" in Arabic, is one of the oldest cities in the world. For millennia, it has been a strategic location due to its crossroads and bridge between north and south, east and west. This has made it home to a large number of people with different origins, ethnicities and religious beliefs, but this in turn made it a target for ISIL/Daesh. In 2014, a three-year occupation (2014-2017) was carried out that ended with devastating results and these years passed before the shackles of violent extremism could be broken. Mosul was devastated and the city was left in ruins, its heritage sites reduced to rubble, religious monuments and cultural antiquities damaged, and thousands of its inhabitants displaced, leaving them scarred and in immense humanitarian need.

Therefore, in February 2018, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay launched the flagship initiative “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” as the Organization's response to the recovery of one of Iraq's iconic cities. Reviving Mosul is not only about rebuilding heritage sites, but also about empowering the population as agents of change involved in the process of rebuilding their city through culture and education.