Half a million civilians fled Mosul
Heavy fighting for west drives new wave of displaced
BAGHDAD // Nearly half a million people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched an operation to wrest Mosul back from militants exactly six months ago, the United Nations said yesterday.
Iraqi forces began the country’s biggest military operation in years on October 17 last year and recaptured the east side of the city in January.
But an assault launched the following month on the part of Mosul that lies west of the Tigris river has resulted in a sharp rise in displacement.
“The sheer volume of civilians still fleeing Mosul city is staggering,” said Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Iraq.
“Our worst-case scenario when the fighting started was that up to one million civilians may flee Mosul. Already, more than 493,000 people have left, leaving almost everything behind,” she said.
Iraqi forces have been making significant gains in west Mosul in the past two months but the toughest battles could yet lie ahead, with diehard ISIL militants hunkering down in the streets of the Old City.
The UN estimated that another half million civilians were still in ISIL-controlled areas of west Mosul. “Mosul has pushed us to our operational limits,” added Ms Grande.
On March 31 during a visit to a displacement camp near Mosul, UN chief Antonio Guterres said that the aid effort was woefully underfunded and called for greater international solidarity.
About two thirds of the overall number of displaced people fled their homes in west Mosul in the past two months alone.
Ms Grande said the fighting there was tougher than on the east bank, which might explain why some residents who had planned to weather the clashes and stay eventually had to escape. “There are more trauma injuries, homes are being destroyed, food stocks are dwindling quickly and families are at serious risk because there isn’t enough drinking water,” she said. The UN has been expanding the capacity of some of the camps scattered around Mosul, but the aid community could have to deal with an unprecedented exodus if and when the remaining civilians flee the city.