MOSUL, Iraq – Newlyweds Ali Ibrahim and Dhuha Ismet were full of love and hope, creating a home and planning a future in their city Mosul that is rebuilding after dark years under the Islamic State (ISIS). Tragically, Dhuha was one of some 100 people who died when a ferry capsized in the Tigris River on March 21, 2019, leaving her new husband torn apart with grief.
Ali and Dhuha met and fell in love seven years ago, but their story was interrupted by war. Ali fled Mosul when ISIS militants swept across northern Iraq in 2014. He returned after the jihadists were driven out in July 2017 and set to work to convince Dhuha’s family to allow them to marry. They rejected his first marriage proposal, but accepted his second.
They were married on February 10, 2019 and began making a home together.
"They were very happy when they decided to buy this bed,” Mudin Abdullah recalled. He owns a furniture store where the happy couple shopped. The bed was going to be delivered after Ramadan, in early June.
Ali and Dhuha were also planning a wedding party to take place on a tourist island in the Tigris River, central Mosul.
On March 21, Dhuha went to the island with some of her family members. They were on the overcrowded ferry that capsized in the river. At least 100 people were killed, including Dhuha, her mother, and two of her sisters.
“Rescue teams from the Kurdistan Region came and brought out the bodies of three of my sisters and my mother. Two of my sisters were students at middle and high schools. [Dhuha] was studying at [Mosul] University,” Dhuha’s brother Ilyas Ismet recounted.
It was Ilyas who had to break the news to Ali that his new wife was dead.
"When I heard this, I forgot everything. I just wanted to stand up, but felt like my body weighed a ton,” Ali recalled. "I did everything to have a nice life, but everything ended in a second."
Ali buried Dhuha with his own hands.
Now that she is gone, “there is no air to breathe in Iraq,” he said. He’s thinking about leaving the country.
Dozens of people are still missing. Rescue and recovery teams from the Kurdistan Region and Turkey joined in the search.
The city, already struggling to recover from life under ISIS and damage from the war to oust the jihadists, erupted with anger, much of it directed at the governor, Nawfal Hamadi.
Hamadi was subsequently sacked by the parliament and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. Nine people allegedly involved in the incident, including the owner of the ferry, have been detained.
The governor is rumoured to have fled to Erbil. Abdulkhaliq Talaat, director-general of Erbil Police, said he could not confirm if Hamadi was in the city or not.
If he receives a request from the Iraqi government to act on the arrest warrant, “we will carry it out,” Talaat said. But, “until now, we have not received anything.”