Death on the doorstep
REUTERS MOSUL The vehicles screeched into the small field hospital on the outskirts of Mosul carrying desperate loads: soldiers injured in battle as well as men, women and children caught in the crossfire of Iraq’s war against Islamic State.
Some staggered out clutching bleeding wounds; others were lifted by medics on to stretchers. They had come face to face with chlorine gas, mortar fire, bombs and artillery shells. For a few, it was too late, and instead of a stretcher, a body bag waited.
The medical station, manned by medics from Iraq’s special forces alongside United States and Serbian volunteers, provides a small window into the inevitable human toll of the battle to oust Isis from Mosul as the war pushes deeper into the city.
After more than two weeks of advances, Iraqi forces are now pressing into more densely populated areas and penetrating the epicentre of the group’s last remaining territory in the country.
As they do, Iraqi commanders say Isis militants are putting up a tougher fight than they have ever seen, bringing furious battles to the doorsteps of more than a million people. The civilian presence hugely complicates the fight for the advancing Iraqi forces and air strikes by the US-led coalition, a fact Isis is using for its gain as it desperately tries to hold on to its capital in Iraq.
For more than a year, the militants have largely prevented people from leaving the city, but in recent weeks they have rounded up villagers from the outskirts and forced them inside the city to use as human shields.
‘‘Head injury!’’ shouted Major Ahmed Hussein, the chief medic, as a 16-year-old girl arrived in a family sedan. After laying her on a stretcher, medics bound her head, trying to staunch the flow of blood from the shrapnel wound. ‘‘May God take revenge on Daesh,’’ cried her mother, using a derogatory term for Isis.
Before the team had finished treating her, another casualty arrived: a tank driver struggling to breathe after a suspected chlorine attack. He was drained of colour, and his chest trembled as he tried to fill his lungs. The militants have regularly used chlorine on the battlefield, often it in mortar shells.
‘‘That’s our sixth or seventh chlorine gas,’’ said Derek Coleman, 27, from San Diego, who came to Iraq with hopes of fighting Isis but realised he could be of more use as a medic.
Over the course of the day, Hussein’s station treated 15 civilians, one of whom died from gunshot wounds. Many, though, are unable to reach medical assistance, and those fleeing talk of entire families killed in shelling and bombing.
The Iraqi government is trying to get people to stay in their homes during the fighting, but as the battle draws near, many inevitably flee. For those who stay, even after their areas are cleared of militants, food supplies are low, forcing many out.
A woman from Gogjali arrived at the medical centre with her young daughter and asked the soldiers to break open a shop that she said used to belong to Isis and sold milk. ‘‘I just need milk for my baby,’’ she said. Washington Post