Mosul is once home to 70,000 Arameans Christians there are possibly none left today in Mosul, any that do remain are forced to pay a tax for remaining Christian, and live under the constant threat of violence.
"My mind is full with memories," says a man in his mid-30s. "Friends. Home. You know - my home. I was born there," as he speaks about the city he lived in all his life.
Since the fall of Mosul, residents suffer a regime of strict rules and brutally violent punishments for breaking them. The man is too afraid of ISIS to give his name.
He said we have house, we have car, we have jobs, we have life, we are normal people. Reminiscing the times when there is no ISIS or extremist in Mosul.
He left the city after a year of the occupation of ISIS. Since January 2015 US and the Kurds are on the offensive to help retake the city. Now the long-awaited military operations to take back Mosul are getting ready. What does he expect for his future if the city is regained?
"I miss the home," he says. "But going home is like killing myself."
"I expects chaos and violent retribution if ISIS is pushed out of Mosul. I fear that families who lost loved ones to the militants will take revenge not just on those who worked with ISIS, but on their whole families," he added.
He reckoned that his life in Mosul is over. There is no returning home. He and his friends will never go back, so nostalgia is painful.
He doesn't trust officials set to run Mosul, he sees them just as corrupt and incompetent. It is ISIS he actually blames for tearing his world apart.
"It makes me too angry," he says. "They killed everything. Killed history. They killed people. They killed hope. Killed future. They killed everything."
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