REUTERS-More than 2,000
Iraqis a day are fleeing Mosul, several hundred more each day than before
U.S.-led coalition forces began a new phase of their battle to retake the
city
from Islamic State, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
After quick initial
advances, the operation stalled for several weeks but last Thursday Iraqi
forces renewed their push from Mosul's east towards the Tigris River on three
fronts.
Elite interior
ministry troops were clearing the Mithaq district on Wednesday, after entering
it on Tuesday when counterterrorism forces also retook an industrial zone.
Federal police
advanced in the Wahda district, the military said on Wednesday, in the 12th
week of Iraq's largest military campaign since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
As they advanced,
many more civilian casualties were also being recorded, the U.N. said.
Vastly outnumbered,
the militants have embedded themselves among residents and are using the city
terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting
snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors, and making tunnels
and surface-level passageways between buildings.
"We were very
afraid," one Mithaq resident said.
"A Daesh
(Islamic State) anti-aircraft weapon was positioned close to our house and was
opening fire on helicopters. We could see a small number of Daesh fighters in
the street carrying light and medium weapons. They were hit by planes."
Security forces have
retaken about a quarter of Mosul since October but, against expectations and
despite severe shortages of food and water, most residents have stayed put
until now.
More than 125,000
people have been displaced out of a population of roughly 1.5 million, but the
numbers have increased by nearly 50 percent to 2,300 daily from 1,600 over the
last few days, the U.N. refugee agency said.
The humanitarian
situation was "dire", with food stockpiles dwindling and the price of
staples spiralling, boreholes drying up or turning brackish from over-use and
camps and emergency sites to the south and east reaching maximum capacity, it
said.
Most of the fleeing
civilians are from the eastern districts but people from the besieged west,
still under the militants' control, are increasingly attempting to escape,
scaling bridges bombed by the coalition and crossing the Tigris by boat.
An Iraqi victory in
Mosul would probably spell the end for Islamic State's self-styled caliphate
but in recent days the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are
likely to resort if they lose the city, killing dozens with bombs in Baghdad
and attacking security forces elsewhere.
Double click on tmsnrt.rs/2fd0nGE for map on Battle for Mosul
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