The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsTroubled waters: Iraqi spa reborn after IS massacres
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Men gather at the Hamam al-Alil baths, south of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, on June 30, 2022. (AFP/Zaid Al-Obeidi)
A
mineral spa in northern Iraq is regaining popularity as renovation work has brought back visitors, in a city once ruled by jihadists who carried out mass executions.
Hisham Khaled often visited the Hamam al-Alil baths as a child with his father but since the facility's restoration he comes alone.
His father, a policeman, was executed near the baths by the Islamic State (IS) group in 2016.
Located 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Mosul, Hamam al-Alil -- meaning the baths of the sick in Arabic -- built a solid reputation over decades with its therapeutic sulphurous waters.
But the spa and surrounding village, which shares the same name, is now also known for massacres committed by IS during its occupation of the area.
"I lost the people who were dearest to me," says Khaled, 21, sitting shirtless and in his underpants near the spa's circular pool.
His father, a police colonel, was among hundreds of local officers rounded up and executed by IS. Their bodies were discovered in November 2016 in a mass grave close to an agricultural college in the village.
More from The Weekender
In between the kingdoms of the well and sick
In a clarifying Third Place between illness and recovery, life becomes both stranger and clearer than it's ever been.
Machines Without a Beating Heart?
As electric cars reshape the driving experience, enthusiasts wrestle with what makes a car special: the roar of its engine, the quirks of an aging machine, or the memories we leave behind the wheel.
FX Harsono revisits Indonesia’s unresolved past in Ambang/Threshold
The veteran artist reworks familiar images of violence and discrimination to confront a history that continues to shape the present.
