Arbil: The fighting in the Daesh-held Old City of Mosul, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are trapped, could turn into the worst humanitarian “catastrophe” in the war against the militants, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.
“If there is a siege and hundreds of thousands of people don’t have water and don’t have food, they will be at enormous risk,” UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande said in a telephone interview.
“We could be facing a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps the worst in the entire conflict,” she added.
Last month, the UN warned that the worst was yet to come for the 400,000 civilians trapped in west Mosul.
Food shortages and growing panic under shelling could provoke a mass exodus, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said.
Many civilians fear fleeing because of Daesh snipers and landmines, but 157,000 have reached a reception and transit centre since the Iraqi government offensive on west Mosul began a month ago, it said.
“The worst is yet to come, if I can put it this way. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions,” said Bruno Geddo, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Iraq.
Civilians are streaming out at an increasing rate, now averaging 8,000-12,000 per day who reach a reception and transit centre at Hammam Al Alil.
People usually run away under the cover of early morning fog, at night, or at prayer time when the vigilance at Daesh checkpoints is lower.
“People have started to burn furniture, old clothes, plastic, anything they can burn to keep warm at night, because it is still raining heavily and the temperatures at night in particular drop significantly,” Geddo said.
Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by Daesh militants in mid 2014.
Iraqi government forces have taken back most of it in a US-backed offensive launched in October, including the half that lies east of the Tigris river.
The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern quarter, including the historic Old City, using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire against the assailants.
