Hundreds of thousands have been killed since the United States-led coalition toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Millions more have fled or have been displaced. CGTN's Jack Barton reports that 15 years after the invasion, Iraq's physical - and mental - scars remain deep.

In Iraq the guns are now largely silent. Though the war is far from over for many including an estimated two million Iraqis displaced within their own country. Farooq Abu Rayan and his wife Amira are from Hamdaniya near the former ISIL stronghold of Mosul.

AMIRA TOMA FORMER RESIDENT OF HAMDANIYA "We used to have a car and a house and shops. I used to go to my job at the Hamdaniya hospital. My son worked, my husband worked and we didn't have any troubles."

That all changed with a midnight call from a cousin alerting them that ISIL was close.

FAROOQ ABU RAYAN FORMER RESIDENT OF HAMDANIYA "We got some gold pieces and fled directly to Turkey. We inquired at the United Nation office, but we never had luck there so we came back and from then until now we remain here."

78-year-old Fatlhallah Hadda Hazu's leg was amputated in the camp as a result of diabetes. He is alone with only memories of the horrors left behind.

FATLHALLAH HADDA HAZU FORMER RESIDENT OF MOSUL "I saw a man who was just walking in the street and they just killed him. We saw this several times so I thought that someday soon I would be dead too, so I chose to flee."

JACK BARTON BAGHDAD "There are more than 500 people in the camp one of many across Iraq where it is estimated about six million people have been displaced by ISIL's reign of terror."

Those in the camp survived ISIL and the bloodshed of the past 15 years. Many of the parents of these orphaned children did not. Saif Salih Husham's mother and father were killed by a roadside bomb while travelling with him to Baghdad. Ali Hazim's parents were murdered by extremists in Anbar province, which became a hotbed of insurgency after the 2003 invasion, he made his own way to the orphanage. Here they are fed, sheltered and taught a trade, most importantly they are safe.

ALI HAZIM ORPHAN AT HOUSE OF CREATIVITY "Not everybody can have a place like this. From this place a kid can become anything, a painter, and artists or a musician. And as well he will acquire forty brothers instead of just one."

For the children here, and the displaced in the camps the legacy of the past 15 years of conflict is something they must still live with every day.