Inside Mosul zoo: a microcosm of a bitter conflict
From our UK edition
Mosul If you want to understand Mosul, there are worse places to start than a trip to the city’s zoo. After two and a half years of Isis occupation, and months of fighting between the militants and government forces, it is one of the few outdoor attractions still standing in Iraq’s second city. There is, however, very little to recommend it to the traditional zoo-goer. When I visited recently, there were only two animals there: Simba, a rheumatic lion, and Lula, a watery-eyed bear whose two cubs had been lost to hunger. For all its failings as a family attraction, it is an instructive microcosm of a complicated conflict that is far from over.
