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Marathon to raise Funds for Mosul Iraq

On November 30, 2017, over 4,000 competitors took part in the event. Each contributed the equivalent of 4 dollars to run in the “peace marathon”. Mosul was liberated from ISIL terrorists earlier this year.

“I want to offer this victory to the people of Nineveh province. I offer them my congratulations for the peace and security,” an ebullient Bagdaly Salima, Winner of the First International Nineveh Marathon For Peace held in Mosul, Iraq. “I thank God for my participation in the International Nineveh Marathon for Peace, and I thank God for having won this marathon,”

Over 4,000 Iraqi and foreign runners took part in a “peace marathon” on Thursday in efforts to raise money for rebuilding war-torn Mosul’s western district. The first “International Nineveh Marathon for Peace” took place in Mosul’s eastern district near the destroyed Old Bridge.

The event was organized to raise funds for displaced residents of west Mosul as well as help in rebuilding homes and shops. Raad al-Taii, a spokesman for the organizers, told AFP that “Each participant contributed 5,000 dinars ($4) to take part in the race,” Another participant who came in third place said, “I participated in the ‘Marathon for Peace‘ to tell the world that we are one nation and that nobody can divide us.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the defeat of ISIS in west Mosul on July 10, three years after Iraq’s second-largest city was seized by ISIS militants and nearly a year after military operations began to liberate the city. Years of ISIS control over Mosul and military operations left key infrastructure in ruins, causing the largest rebuilding and stabilization challenge the world has seen in decades. A representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Iraq, Lise Grande, told Rudaw in late July that estimates to repair basic public infrastructure in western Mosul alone sit at $700 million.

The hope of the organizers is to help rebuild Iraq and launch international awareness of the need for international help to rebuild Iraq. It would seem that the world could give more than a helping hand, in particular, the United States, Great Britain, and Spain who were the original protagonist in this horror story.

 

Source Rudaw.net

Agence France-Presse

A Kurdish Online News Media Organization

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