Add Category
Updated
Day by day, thousands of families continue to stream out of West Mosul to packed refugee camps around the city.
Just to try and leave is to risk death, with the militants' snipers routinely picking off those fleeing.
Mothers are even resorting to drugging their babies to ensure they are not caught exiting the city.
"I gave him some drops of medication," a young mother from West Mosul tells me, holding her sleeping six-month-old baby boy in the transit area of the Hamman Al ALil camp. "I didn't want him to make a sound."
But it's not just Islamic State that is causing fear, injury and death.
"Everyday there were airstrikes," 17-year-old Hiba tells the ABC. "Two of my relatives were killed. They were at work when the plane bombed them."
I meet 45-year-old Khaled, who sits in his wheelchair surrounded by his four children and his wife, Noor.
"It was an airstrike," he says, motioning to his legs, which he now has no use of.
"ISIS puts their snipers on the roofs and then the planes bomb."
Noor says civilians are caught between ISIS on one side and airstrikes on the other.
"ISIS militants took my house. I said 'but my husband is disabled'. They said 'it's not my problem, the location is important for us and you need to get out'," she tells me, sobbing.
'So many have been killed'
Hundreds of new arrivals at the camp's transit area gather around a small medical caravan providing limited medical services.
Inside, 35-year-old Khowlah sits in the corner, moaning and shivering in pain. For the past 15 days she's had a broken leg, but no chance to receive any treatment.
"I had to carry her on my back all the way from our neighbourhood," her brother says.
"She was making bread, ISIS was in the neighbourhood and then plane bombed," he tells the ABC.
"So many have been killed because of the airstrikes. They're being pulled from rubble."
Snipers, mortars, airstrikes, IEDS — many dangers for civilians
Ania Zolkiewska, the Head of MSF North Iraq, says the population of West Mosul is so dense it's difficult for civilians to escape injury from airstrikes.
"It's not just the airstrikes," she tells the ABC.
"You have heavy weapons being used by both sides, you have mortars, you have IEDs, you have booby-trapped buildings. It's a lot of different factors that are leading to a very high casualty rate and very violent and bloody injuries."
In a small town about 20 kilometres from Mosul, the American NGO Samaritan's Purse is running a field hospital that has treated more than a 1,000 patients since January.
Lying inside the ER are two brothers, both lucky to be alive after being shot by ISIS snipers as they escaped Mosul two days ago.
"My other brother died," Abdulrhaman tells me sadly, turning his head and quietly sobbing.
"Yeah, we see this everyday, numerous times a day," says ER specialist Dr Shumpert. "There's been a lot of sniper activity and wounds similar to this."
Lying in the women's ward is 32-year-old Fatima, who has a broken leg and shrapnel injuries after her home in West Mosul was hit by airstrikes three days ago.
"They bombed my house and it collapsed on me. My neighbours were killed," she tells the ABC.
Fatima questions the level of force the coalition is using against Islamic State.
"They can't use big bombs," Fatima says. "Because it goes on the houses and kills so many families. Mosul is being destroyed."
Military 'transferring risk' back to civilians
Airwars, an NGO that monitors civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria, says the battle for West Mosul has seen a greater reliance on airstrikes from the Iraqi Army and the coalition.
"Iraqi forces took a terrible pounding when they captured the east of the city," says Airwars director Chris Woods. "I think what we're seeing in West Mosul is a shift.
"Instead of clearing a house, as they may have done a few months ago, they're calling in an airstrike. And it's transferring the risk from the military onto the civilians."
On Tuesday, the top US commander in Iraq acknowledged the likelihood the US-led coalition had a role in blasts in the West Mosul neighbourhoods of Al Jadida on March 17 that may have killed more than 200 civilians.
"My initial assessment is that we probably had a role in these casualties," Lieutenant General Steve Townsend told a Pentagon news briefing, speaking from Iraq.
"Now, here's what I don't know. What I don't know is were they [the civilians] gathered there by the enemy? We still have some assessments to do."
The commander's comments came as the UN's human rights chief urged the Iraqi Government and US-led coalition to review tactics in Mosul to spare civilians he said were being deliberately put at risk by Islamic State.
The UN says at least 307 civilians have been killed and 273 wounded in western Mosul between February 17 and March 22 as Islamic State fighters herd people into booby-trapped buildings as human shields and fire on those who flee, according to UN figures.
"This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said.
"It is vital that the Iraqi security forces and their coalition partners avoid this trap," he said in a statement.
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, iraq, united-states
First posted