REPORT: Hundreds of Iraqis struggle in muddy roads to flee Mosul as battles rage

Hundreds of civilians reached in the early hours of Sunday morning positions held by Iraqi forces in Mosul dodging gunfire and walking for hours along muddy and rain swept roads as battles intensify between U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants.    

Civilians have been fleeing southern districts of Mosul where Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi'ite Muslim armed groups are waging an offensive to dislodge Islamic State fighters from the western half of the city, which has been under their control since 2014.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

The battle for Mosul has killed and wounded several thousand people since it started on Oct. 17, according to aid agencies.
 
Speaking from Erbil, east of Mosul, Bastien Vigneau, the emergency director for Mosul operations at the U.N children's agency UNICEF, said on Saturday that over 100,000 children are among the 191,000 people who have been displaced from the city since October.

Among them, UNICEF identified 874 children who were unaccompanied or separated. More than half have been reunited with parents, and the rest are being taken care of by extended family, the agency said.

REUTERS

 

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