Rabat- Humanitarian agencies are bracing for the possibility that in coming weeks about 300,000 to 320,000 civilians may flee the western districts of Iraqi’s Mosul city where Government forces are fighting to oust ISIS terrorists, a senior United Nations aid official in the country has said.
“The humanitarian operation in western Mosul is far larger and far more complex than in the east” said the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, in a news release issued yesterday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The main difference, she explained, is that tens of thousands of families stayed in their homes in the east, but in the west, tens of thousands are fleeing.
“We’ve been planning and preparing for the Mosul operation for months. But the truth is that the crisis is pushing all of us to our limits. We’re going to be doing the best we can to ensure the people who need assistance receive it,” said Ms. Grande.
Humanitarian agencies are deeply worried that civilians are at grave risk in western Mosul.
The use of explosives in the densely populated Old City is likely to cause extensive damage, and people fleeing are telling humanitarian workers that it’s very difficult to enter or leave the Old City, said Ms. Grande.
MWN With MAP
