Around 100,000 civilians are trapped in ISIS-held areas of West Mosul, a human shield that is facing starvation and violence, warned the UNHCR’s representative in Iraq on Friday, June 16.
Those that try to leave are shot by snipers.
While the battle to capture Mosul, Iraq’s second city and the ISIS’s defacto capital in Iraq, has continued to make progress since it was launched nine months ago, the battle has displaced 862,000 men, women, and children from their homes.
The winding corridors of the dense city must be retaken on foot, building by building, street by street.
Iraqi and coalition forces are meeting fierce resistance from ISIS fighters, said UNHCR representative Bruno Geddo at a news briefing in Geneva.
“The civilian population is being moved by fighters with them to be used as human shields, and … ISIS snipers continue to aim at people trying to flee,” Geddo told reporters at the Palais des Nations. “They are risking their lives if they stay and if they flee.”
Food and water have all but run out while the fighting rages on all sides, leaving people in “penury and panic,” said Geddo.
The labyrinthine streets of the old city and the desperation of ISIS fighters has raised the risk of civilian casualties.
The U.N. Refugee Agency has built 13 camps in northern Iraq to temporarily house those fleeing the city and surrounding areas.
“People coming out of west Mosul are deeply traumatized. They have seen unspeakable things,” said Geddo.
