Islamic State kills hundreds fleeing Mosul
GENEVA — Islamic State fighters shot and killed hundreds of residents in the Iraqi city of Mosul in the past two weeks, the United Nations said Thursday, describing an increasingly desperate drive by the jihadis to prevent civilians from fleeing.
Iraqi forces, backed by air strikes from a U.S.led coalition, have made advances into the city, and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has responded in brutal fashion to halt the flight of civilians they want to use as human shields, the United Nations said.
The deadliest attack came June 1, when at least 163 civilians, including women and children, were killed near a Pepsi factory as they headed out of the Shifa neighborhood of Mosul, the U.N.’s human rights office in Geneva said.
“They were gunned down as they were fleeing,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the human rights office, which reported that, as of two days ago, the bodies of the victims were still lying in the streets.
An estimated 200,000 civilians are still trapped in desperate conditions in the old city of Mosul, targeted by jihadis and suffering heavy casualties from coalition bombing and artillery fire.
Iraqi forces had been advising Mosul residents to stay in their houses because of the street-bystreet fighting and aerial bombing, but government aircraft have dropped leaflets in recent days urging residents of the old city to flee.
The United Nations reported that the Islamic State had shot and killed at least 231 civilians in the past two weeks, but Shamdasani said that many other people were missing and that the actual death toll was almost certainly higher.
Fighters killed 27 civilians in the Shifa area last month. On Saturday, they shot 41 more in the same neighborhood as they attempted to reach positions held by advancing Iraqi forces, Shamdasani said.
Since Iraqi forces opened their campaign to retake western Mosul more than three months ago, the Islamic State has herded thousands of civilians into locations near the fighters’ positions to form a human shield.
The militants have also positioned snipers on rooftops to shoot residents who attempt to flee, along with other steps to prevent their escape.
Civilians who have managed to get out told of fighters killing men who were planning to leave, as well as shooting fugitives fleeing through the streets, Amnesty International reported Thursday.
Shamdasani said that the Islamic State “is getting increasingly desperate and increasingly overwhelmed by Iraqi forces, and their response to this is to up the cost of trying to flee.”
In another episode at the end of May, Islamic State fighters locked nine civilians in a basement of a hospital. As government forces neared the hospital, the militants killed the civilians and then set fire to the building, Shamdasani said.