Health care kits offered to medical center in Iraq's Mosul, UN says

Primary health care kits sufficient for treatment of 3,000 people have been handed over to a health centre in a recently retaken neighborhood of eastern Mosul city in Iraq during a UN assessment mission to the area, a UN spokesman said here Wednesday.

"The assessment mission also identified ways to enhance the rapid distribution of further assistance, such as one-week ready to eat emergency food rations, high energy biscuits, baby kits, bottled water, water purification tablets, hygiene kits and dignity kits," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

As of Wednesday, more than 95,000 people were internally displaced as a result of the Mosul operations, which began on Oct. 17, he noted.

On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city, in a bid to liberate the last major Islamic State (IS) stronghold in Iraq.

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