Mosul, Iraq, July 2017

‘This is a view from a military post in Mosul a day after the Iraqi army liberated the old city from Isis. You see where the hardest fighting took place. The tragic thing about Mosul is that this huge urban battle was fought with 1.5 million people trapped inside. Isis wouldn’t let them leave. They were using them as human shields.’

Mosul, Iraq, July 2017

‘Most buildings in the old city have two levels of basements, so even bombing a house once did not end Isis resistance – [Iraqi forces] would have to bomb it twice, or three times. So actually when you go to the old city in Mosul you don’t see streets any more. You can’t distinguish where the buildings stood and where the street was. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Bratislava, Slovakia, 2017

‘After Mosul I went to London to meet with my editors. Then, instead of flying back to Istanbul, I went by train. The journey took three days. It gave me time to think about the Mosul piece and come up with a structure. This drawing was done on a bench at a train station in Bratislava and you can see some of my notes from the journey.’

Basra, Iraq, 2016

‘Basra is one of the last places in Iraq where you can see these beautiful wooden windows. They’ve been standing for hundreds of years. Now they’re falling apart, not directly because of bombings or airstrikes, but out of neglect, poverty and corruption. People were taking care of these buildings before the invasion in 2003, but since then the society has been in conflict, so who cares about a wooden window any more, if the whole city is ruled by gangs?’

Sa’ada, Yemen, November 2016

‘These are mud houses in Sa’ada, a historic city in the north of Yemen. They are seven or eight storeys high, and if I say they’re unique, it’s not enough. They’ve been hit by Saudi airstrikes and cut down the middle. Yemeni culture is very conservative, so the interior of the house is private – but here are these houses in the middle of the town with all the innards spilling out.’

Sana’a, Yemen, 2015

‘This was drawn before the capital was bombed. It contrasts the chaos you often see in the streets of a Middle Eastern city with the delicacy and beauty of the architecture. I started working on a bigger panorama of the old city, but three of the buildings are missing now. Some of the most beautiful buildings in Sana’a have been destroyed by Saudi airstrikes.’