In a darkened room damaged by bombardment, 15-year-old Ahmad stares in silence at his left leg, maimed by a blast that occurred earlier this year during the fierce battle to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.

"I wanted to be a police officer in the future, to protect people. But in this condition, that no longer seems possible," Ahmad told Kyodo News at his home near the so-called Old City on the western bank of the Tigris River, the last part of Mosul to be liberated from Islamic State militants.

"I was walking outside, bringing water from a well for my family, when I heard the sound of an explosion next to my leg and then lost consciousness," he said. "When I awoke in hospital and saw that my left leg was maimed, I couldn't stop crying."

Since then, Ahmad has sat on a sofa every day in the stuffy and light-deprived room, enduring chronic pain, while his family and others throughout Mosul continue to suffer deprivations and hardships, such as chronic power outages.

Three months have passed since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces liberated the northern city that had been under Islamic State's draconian rule for an equal number of years.

The city was considered the extremist group's most important bastion. Indeed, it was from here that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.

The once vibrant city now lies in ruins, with its citizens picking up the pieces of their shattered lives and hopes.

In contrast with the situation across the river in eastern Mosul, where at least some signs of recovery are evident, the scene in western Mosul is one of utter devastation, full of ruined buildings and downcast residents.

The huge amount of debris littering its sand-blown streets is being removed by citizens step by step, however, and some stores have reopened, though with hardly any customers coming to make purchases.

Under the blazing sun in eastern Mosul, 13-year-old Abdulrahman was one of dozens of boys trying to sell various items to passersby on a street beside the Tigris River.

"Before my dream was to become a doctor," said Abdulrahman, whose home was demolished by bombardment and his father so seriously injured he can no longer walk. To support the family, the boy started selling bottled drinking water on the street.

Wandering the bombed out city from 6 a.m. till 8 p.m., he manages to sell around 60 bottles of drinking water a day to earn 5,000 Iraqi dinars (about $4) on average, spending that to buy some vegetables to feed his family. "All I wish for is the slightest bit of stable life," he said, devoid of emotion and never once smiling throughout the interview.

Portraits of doe-eyed kids hang from walls and power poles, appealing for any information about missing children, feared kidnapped by Islamic State or some criminal organization.

"These kids disappeared last month, after the liberation of this city," a street vendor said.

In western Mosul, a heavily armored man blocked the way toward the Old City. "It's too dangerous beyond this block. There are still Islamic State sleeper cells everywhere inside the old city. We just captured eight suspects yesterday," he said.

"It was a nightmare under Islamic State occupation, but the situation has not changed since liberation," Shamel, a male shopkeeper in western Mosul, despaired. He lost two uncles and four cousins amid the fighting between the Iraqi forces and Islamic State.

"We searched for them by ourselves and found their bodies under rubble. No one helped us," said Shamel, who recently reopened his small grocery store but said no one comes to buy anything.

"The Iraqi government isn't concerned about people here since Islamic State was swept away. If this desperate situation continues, another extremist group will come to this city one day because of our complaints."

"Islamic State completely destroyed the future for our kids," said 43-year-old Azam, whose house was occupied by the militants. He showed a photo of an 11-year-old girl who had been shot in the head while playing outside.

The war has torpedoed the dreams that many children like Abdulrahman had for the future, in some cases irreparably.

Due to loss of income, his 34-year-old mother Rasha said, "We cannot afford to get an artificial leg for Ahmad. His father has been in poor health for a long time. Life is extremely hard."

Like many parents did during the period of Islamic State rule, they kept their children out of school to prevent them from being brainwashed and radicalized. "Our circumstances were like being in jail," she said.

"My only wish now is get an artificial leg," said Ahmad, sitting motionless beside his two younger siblings under the bomb-scarred ceiling of their house.

"I want to walk freely, then to go to school again one day," he said, as his brother and sister anxiously looked on, their eyes fixated on his injured leg.