MOSUL — It's night time, and young adults in Mosul are heading out to do some shopping. They are buying drinks from one of the alcohol shops that have reopened in the city.
The stores were banned during the Islamic State (ISIS) group's three-year occupation of Mosul. But with the militants now driven out, shops like this have returned.
Young people take their purchases to dark streets to drink in secret. In this conservative city, they want their identity hidden, as alcohol is frowned upon by society.
"We drink in these kinds of places because the majority of the youth don't have a place to go and drink," said an alcohol drinker named Abu Khalid.
The majority of the alcohol sellers are members of the Yezidi religious ethno-religious minority, as Iraq doesn't grant alcohol licenses to Muslims.
Mosul was home to just over 1.8 million people before IS took over in 2014. But the current population is just over 660,000.
People within the city are concerned that the level of alcohol abuse is increasing.
