Senior UN official deeply concerned about humanitarian crisis in north Iraqi city

A senior UN official on Tuesday voiced deep concern about what he called "the rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis in Mosul," a city in north Iraq, calling for strengthened efforts to protect women and girls in the city being liberated by Iraqi forces from the Islamic State (IS) terrorists.

"I am deeply concerned about the rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis in Mosul, Iraq, and the heightened threat to the health and lives of pregnant women who may be cut off from life-saving emergency obstetric care," Babatunde Osotimehin, the UN under-secretary-general and executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), said in a statement.

Among the 200,000 people likely to be displaced during the initial weeks of military operations in Mosul, an estimated 46,000 are women and girls of reproductive age, including about 8,000 who are pregnant or about to give birth, the statement said.

Life-saving health services must be maintained and accessible to all who require them, it said.

"Whether women live or die in a crisis often depends on whether they can access basic sexual and reproductive health services, which too often take a back seat to other urgent needs, like food and shelter," the statement said.

"This includes pregnant women, who may face potentially life-threatening childbirth complications, as well as lactating women, caring for newborns throughout the chaos."

In addition, untold numbers of internally displaced women and adolescent girls are at increased risk of gender-based violence, including rape, as well as trafficking and sexual slavery, the statement said.

The UNFPA is scaling up emergency reproductive health services and its response to gender-based violence to protect the health and lives of women and girls caught in the midst of this crisis, which is expected to displace more than 1 million people in the weeks ahead, said the statement.

"Additional funding is urgently needed to mobilize health-care providers and equip them with medicines and other essential reproductive health supplies and equipment."

The UNFPA is committed to the full realization of the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all women and girls under all conditions, crisis or otherwise, at all times, it added.

Iraqi security forces on Tuesday recaptured more villages from the IS militants, as part of a major offensive aimed at liberating the city of Mosul, the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, a security source said.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions. Endit