Chemical attack brings fresh misery to Mosul
Children among victims of toxic weapons strike as swelling tide of refugees escapes Isil-held west
HOLDING babies on their hips and all the possessions they could carry, thousands of tired and hungry residents streamed out of Mosul yesterday as the Iraqi army pushed deeper into the Isilheld side of the city.
Heavy rain had transformed the barren landscape outside Mosul into a sea of mud, and cold gusts of wind lashed the families as they sank, shoeless, ankle deep into the mud. Sons propped up their elderly mothers, grandparents were pushed through the sludge in wheelchairs. Young girls stoically dragged along bags half their size.
Leaving at daybreak, more than 2,000 civilians had made it to a disused bus terminal in the village of Athbah by noon, security officials at the site estimated. More than 30,000 civilians have fled west Mosul, according to figures by the Norwegian Refugee Council released on Friday.
As citizens flee the west, the United Nation’s World Health Organisation revealed that 12 people from the east were being treated for suspected exposure to chemical agents.
“This is horrible,” Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said. “There is never justification – none whatsoever – for the use of chemical weapons.”
The alleged attack occurred in eastern Mosul, an area declared fully liberated by Iraqi forces in January. The attack hit a neighborhood along the Tigris River, which divides the city.
Among the injured were five children, including a two-month-old baby.
Doctors in an urgent care hospital in the nearby city of Erbil say they began receiving patients showing symptoms of chemical weapons exposure on Thursday.
“The mortar hit our house, right inside the living room where we were sitting,” said Nazim Hamid, whose children had burns to their faces, arms and legs. “There was a very bad smell, it was some kind of gas,” he said. “My kids were affected. Some of them were burnt and some had difficulty breathing.”
Fear has been a constant companion of Mosul’s inhabitants since the Iraqi military on Feb 19 launched its offensive to take the western half of the city, and finish off the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
“I haven’t eaten food in three days, I was too anxious,” said 22-year-old Rashid, who has fled the Mamun neighbourhood with his family.
“Daesh took over our house to set up a mortar position. They threatened to shoot us if we fled the city, so we moved to a relative’s house,” he said.
When the military arrived in his district, Isil drove a captured Humvee packed with explosives into the advance column on his street, damaging the family house.
At the bus terminal, a ride to a displacement camp at the town of Hamman al Alil awaits those that make it through a security screening. Women and children sat in circles on wet mats on the tarmac of the terminal. Soldiers distributed water and food. The men were separated and made to squat on the filthy floor of a courtyard.
A tall man sporting a tattered jacket and a bushy beard did not stand out until a special forces lieutenant shouted at the crowd to form into lines, and his impassive expression gave way to a nervous stare. Soon after, he was identified by a masked informant who strode past the lined-up men. The bedraggled Moslawi was not an innocent civilian but an Isil commander – an emir – looking to make a getaway, the informant told the soldiers. The man was pulled from the line and soon disappeared in a container that served as an improvised interrogation centre.
Among the other 10 suspects identified by informants was a 26-year-old who had fled the outer neighbourhood of Tel al Rayan with his family. When questioned, he quickly confessed to joining Isil soon after the insurgents took over Mosul. Now that military fortunes are reversed, many jihadists are looking to escape, he said.
“The leaders have all fled the city long ago, only the stupid ones are left behind,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“If Daesh catches you trying to escape, they will kill you immediately.”
Iraqi security forces claim to have a list of 24,000 Isil members and sympathisers. But after Mosul fell in June 2014, the police struggled to collect intelligence while the jihadists went on a recruitment drive.
To make up for the information deficit, informants are deployed to weed out insurgents. They hail from the same neighbourhoods as the civilians escaping southwest Mosul, with the local knowledge the security forces lack.
The soldiers at the terminal are sceptical about the small number of suspects detained at the site. The military believes that support for Isil among the population is higher in west Mosul.
“We know a lot of them are Daesh. But what can you do? This side of the river is not like the other side,” said one special forces officer.
‘Daesh took over our house to set up a mortar position. They threatened to shoot us if we fled the city’ ‘My kids were affected. Some of them were burnt and some had difficulty breathing’