The bridges in Mosul over the Tigris river were the most damaged infrastructure during the ISIS war.
Although three years has passed since the government retook control of the city and declared victory on 10 December 2017, most of those bridges still lie in ruins.
Reconstruction of the bridges has been taking place at a slow pace in those three years, and few bridges have been reopened for traffic.
The opening of Zummar Bridge
The ’Roads and Bridges Directorate’ of the Nineveh province (of which Mosul is the centre) declared on 10 December 2020 the reopening of the bridge in Zummar subdistrict which was destroyed by ISIS militants. The date is chosen to coincide with the “Liberation Victory'' day.
Abdulsatar al-Habo, head of the aforementioned directorate, said that the reconstruction of the bridge took nine months.
“The bridge will help reduce the heavy traffic inside the Zummar subdistrict, and replace the alternative roads which were difficult to use by the subdistrict’s residents for travelling back and forth to Mosul City.”
News of Guér (al-Kwair) Bridge reconstruction
The head of the ‘General Directorate of Roads and Bridges’, Hussein Jassim Kadhim, announced that the reconstruction of the Guér Bridge in Nineveh province is funded by a load from the German Development Bank.
He added that the allocated budget for the reconstruction, which will take 18 months, is 900,000 Euros, and that the job will be done by two local firms with the advisory supervision of a German one (Dorsch Group).
The bridge, which was damaged by ISIS militants, is located over the Greater Zap river and links Nineveh province with Kirkuk province.
62% of Qayyara Bridge reconstructed
The ‘Roads and Bridges Directorate’ in Nineveh revealed that reconstruction work will continue on the Qayyara bridge despite the COIVD-19 outbreak.
The Qayyara Bridge reconstruction is also funded by a loan from the German Development Bank and costs 3,729,000 Euros.
Reconstruction of Bridge 3 in Mosul is at 75%
By October, 75% of the Bridge 3 in Mosul was reconstructed by the Ashur company.
Nineveh, 1 July 2020 – reopening of a bridge in Shirqat.
Temporary solutions
al-Habo has told KirkukNow earlier that his directorate was responsible for 59 bridges in Nineveh, and that 57 of those bridges were destroyed by ISIS during the war.
Temporary bridges have been placed over the rivers to function as replacement for the destroyed ones.
One of those temporary bridges collapsed on 28 April 2020 when a truck weighing 50 tons crossed it, while the bridge had the capacity of withstanding 20 tons.
The incident caused the closure of the vital road, which connects Mosul with other northern provinces, for two months.
