When the Sheep Turn Black, War's Toxic Legacy Can No Longer Be Ignored

Nov 6, 2017 | Erik Solheim
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The smoke that billowed from the burning oil fields was so thick it blocked out the sun. By the time I reached Qayyarah, where Islamic State fighters had set fire to 19 oil wells, a film of black soot had settled over the Iraqi town like toxic snow. Even the sheep had turned black.

Pools of thick oil ran in the streets. In the sky above the town, the black smog mixed with white fumes from a nearby sulfur plant that the jihadists had also set on fire as they retreated. The plant burned for months, spewing as much sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere as a small volcanic eruption. Hundreds of people were hospitalized.

The fires may have been extinguished, and Isis ousted from the city, but the environmental devastation caused by the battle for Mosul will linger for decades. The destruction of hospitals, weapons factories, industrial plants and power stations has left behind a toxic cocktail of chemicals, heavy metals, and other harmful waste. Many of these pollutants are mixed up with unexploded bombs and mines in the vast amount of rubble generated by the fighting.