00:00 This small village in the Kurdistan region of Iraq may appear quiet, but ten years ago
00:08 it was at the front lines of the world's battle against ISIS.
00:13 At 3am in August 2014, the residents of Tulaban got a warning they had been dreading.
00:20 ISIS were just half an hour away.
00:24 The entire village sprung into action in the pitch black of the night and fled their homes,
00:30 taking only what they could carry.
00:32 Little did they know it would be three years before they could return.
00:36 Their quiet community was transformed into a military base of ISIS's bloody reign of
00:43 terror.
00:44 When they were eventually forced out, ISIS left behind dozens of booby traps designed
00:49 to kill families trying to return home.
00:52 This whole area around me was contaminated, including the school which is in the background
00:58 here, which was badly booby trapped.
01:00 And just up the hill there's a house here where two people were killed when they came
01:06 back to the village and found an unexploded device.
01:09 Ibrahim Mamad.
01:10 Ibrahim is the mayor of Tulaban and he tells me the shocking truth about the trapping of
01:16 the village.
01:21 They booby trapped many things while they were here, including cooking pots and irrigation
01:25 pipes that people use for agriculture.
01:31 They also booby trapped the area around the playground for children, which we had to remove.
01:44 I can see that people are still scared because of what happened and what we've been through.
01:49 For example, this area was wholly contaminated with IEDs and this house was full of IEDs.
01:58 I was moving around with the engineering unit and telling them to help us clear the area
02:02 as soon as possible.
02:04 That person in the engineering department eventually lost his life to the IEDs.
02:09 Six people were killed when they arrived back in the liberated village after stepping on
02:14 or picking up explosives that ISIS left behind.
02:18 One of the worst affected buildings was the school.
02:23 We were very shocked to see this because in the past, all the conflicts and the wars that
02:27 the country went through were on the borders with other countries.
02:31 But this time, because of the horrific actions of ISIS, this happened inside houses and villages
02:36 where people would leave.
02:37 So when we saw that, we were very shocked.
02:46 We knew that all around the school was booby-trapped with IEDs, especially the houses around the
02:51 school, which were heavily contaminated and booby-trapped.
02:55 Some people lost their lives because of them.
03:02 This area was liberated in 2017, but we only resumed education in 2020.
03:09 Sitting outside his house, we speak to Mouyad Moussa.
03:12 He was one of the only people to witness the ISIS takeover first-hand when he returned
03:17 to the village two days after the occupation in attempt to retrieve his possessions.
03:24 It was about 3am.
03:26 We were told on the phone to withdraw and leave because ISIS was approaching us.
03:35 They would shoot anyone that they saw in the village.
03:38 I came back to try and take my cows with me and then they shot at me.
03:45 After the village was liberated, Mouyad thought his family could rebuild their lives in safety,
03:51 but came home to find deadly traps set around his house.
03:59 This part of the wall was destroyed as they used it as a corridor for them to move between
04:02 the houses.
04:05 They placed an IED here with a gas can just like this one.
04:11 When people come back, the first thing they need is gas cans for cooking and other things.
04:21 They also put down five IEDs in one row here.
04:26 Today, the village of Tulaban has been cleared of explosives by the Mines Advisory Group
04:33 and the school is now once again bustling with children.
04:37 But for so many villages across Iraq and Syria, the deadly ISIS explosives are still claiming
04:43 innocent lives.
04:44 [Music]
04:54 you
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