Big potholes of Mosul Baghdad road increase traffic accidents. The length of the road is 465 km, and after three years of the war against ISIS, big potholes caused by the war are yet to be fixed.
“Anyone who travels through that road and arrives safely should pray because he escapes death,” Durayd Rakabi, 53, said.
Rakabi, who travelled to Baghdad through that road, explained to KirkukNow that the driver had to drive on side roads several times and uses the opposite road to escape the potholes.
“Throughout the way, my heart was beating fast due to the fear of an accident,” he said
Rakabi pointed out that the road from Baghdad to Mosul is also damaged and witnessed a traffic accident while the two drivers were trying to avoid potholes.
Airstrikes and ground fights between ISIS and the Iraqi forces damaged the road.
“Potholes of Mosul- Baghdad road is really dangerous and many traffic accident result from that. Latest accident happened on 25 January,2020 that a tanker truck and a truck collided, resulting in the death of one of the drivers,” Rakabi added.
Rakabi has been transporting people from Mosul to Baghdad and vice versa for 15 years.
In the three years of ISIS war, the scale of damage of Nineveh roads reached 90 percent according to statistics published by the province’s municipality. For instance, ISIS fighter destroyed and digged parts of the road so that they would not have been reached by the Iraqi forces.
“Central government is responsible for the delay of the repair projects of the roads. Budget have been allocated for the projects from the German loan which has also delayed,” Marwan Abdulrazaq, head of media department of Roads and Bridges Office in Nineveh, told KirkukNow.
The loan will create the opportunity to renovate 90 km of the road according to Abdulrazaq.
Iraqi government statistics excluding Kurdistan Region shows that nine thousand and 852 traffic accidents happened in 2018. Two thousand and 767 citizens died and more than 10 thousand were injured in the accidents.
No statistics has been published for last year but authorities have indicated the rise of the accidents compared to 2018.
“I work as a salesman for several comapnies whose offices are based in Baghdad, but sell their goods in Mosul through online shopping. As a result, I travel frequently and when I reach South of Mosul, I get afraid and slow down,” Yazn Abdullah said.
Abdullah demonstrated that the road, especially in Gyara and South of Mosul, has more than 400 potholes some of which are two meters deep and if a car falls into it, of course it will cause death.
People of Mosul also have concern about lack of traffic signs in the high ways.
Abdul Majeed, a traffic police officer, admits that it is right there is not caution signs in the high ways but says the truck drivers do not also follow the rules which is one of the main reasons for the accidents.
Najim Al Jabouri, Nineveh governor, stated, “renovation of the Mosul Bagdad road is among our strategic projects, in the coming days we will try to start implementing it.”
The investors of the projects, he explained, have been told to start implementing the project and to put cautious signs so that people would not fall into the holes of the projects and would avoid any harms.
