Humanitarian partners assist over 5,500 people leaving Iraqi city of Mosul

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that since the beginning of Mosul operations in Iraq, 5,640 people have been displaced, with more than 3,700 displaced on Wednesday alone, a UN spokesman told reporters here Thursday.

The vast majority of displaced families so far have been received in Qayyarah district, some 60km south of Mosul, and some have also been received in Debaga, on the outskirts of Erbil, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here. "They are receiving assistance from humanitarian partners, through pre-positioned facilities and supplies."

"Humanitarian workers continue to focus on identification, assessment and establishment of potential displacement sites," Dujarric said.

Shelter is currently available for 60,000 people in camps and emergency sites, and construction of additional sites, with capacity for 250,000 people, is underway.

"Emergency supplies of food, health items, medicines, shelter kits and water and sanitation assistance continue to be moved into storage sites and distribution points," he said.

Serious concerns remain for the protection of civilians in areas under the control of Da'esh, also known as the Islamic State (IS), inside Mosul, and for their safety as hostilities intensify closer to and in densely populated and urban areas, he 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