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The Straits Times (3 September 2019)

BAIJI, Iraq (AFP)

One man lost his uncle. Another is mourning for two sons. Farmers and herders in Iraq's Baiji say mines left by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group turned their beloved orchards into killing fields.

The improvised explosive devices, planted by extremists trying to fend off Iraqi troops in 2015, have also discouraged scores of families from returning to their battered farming towns around Baiji, in the north of the country.

"Daesh's ghosts are still here. Their crimes are still there, under the earth," said local official Abu Bashir, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

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