The Washington Post :
Hundreds of thousands of people who remain in this northern Iraqi city are struggling to find food and safe drinking water as the protracted offensive against Islamic State militants batters their neighborhoods.
When the battle began seven weeks ago, aid agencies feared that an exodus from the city would overwhelm already crowded camps. Instead, most people heeded government advice to stay in their homes as security forces advanced.
Now many of those residents lack even basic services, with water supplies cut by the fighting, and U.N. and government aid distributions unable to reach all of those in need. Some residents are moving from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of food or to escape the bombardment.
Meanwhile, in areas still controlled by the Islamic State, a siege by security forces is slowly tightening, pushing up food prices and causing shortages while the militants prevent people from leaving. Iraq is struggling to meet the needs of 3.2 million people displaced over the past three years during fighting against the Islamic State.
To limit the displacement from Mosul, the government airdropped leaflets over the city telling civilians to stay put.
But few commanders expect the battle to finish anytime soon, and the misery unfolding in Mosul is expected to worsen as winter sets in.
Reaching people inside the city is risky for humanitarian agencies, which also say they do not have enough aid to meet the need.
This month, Iraqi counterterrorism forces escorted a truck carrying bottled water into the neighborhood of Zuhoor, which had been retaken two days earlier. People quickly crowded around to grab whatever they could. “Is there any food?” they clamored. “We don’t have any food.”
Because of the shortages, some residents have decided to leave the recently reclaimed neighborhoods and move to others on the city’s edge that are better supplied.
Only people who end up in the camps are included among the official number of displaced – 100,000 people – and the United Nations says it has no way to gauge how many internally displaced are in the city.
Jassim al-Attiyah, Iraq’s deputy minister for migration and displacement, estimated that more than 150,000 are displaced within the city and that hundreds of thousands of others remain in their homes but still need aid.
“There is some aid, but it’s a big battle,” he said.
On the far eastern outskirts of the city, Haitham Mazin, 40, his wife and three children are living with a relative in Gogjali, where water and food are distributed more frequently, and some medical assistance is available.
Mazin had wanted his family to stay in their home in the Zahra neighborhood after the area was retaken by Iraqi security forces, but the food and fuel he had stockpiled ran out. He said aid distributions were haphazard, and while some people with connections to security forces had received enough assistance even to sell some, other families including his had gone without.
Dependent on well water, which is not safe to drink, residents had fought when water supplies arrived, he said.
“We became like beggars,” he said. “The government at the beginning told us to stay home, but they didn’t provide anything for us.”
Hundreds of thousands of people who remain in this northern Iraqi city are struggling to find food and safe drinking water as the protracted offensive against Islamic State militants batters their neighborhoods.
When the battle began seven weeks ago, aid agencies feared that an exodus from the city would overwhelm already crowded camps. Instead, most people heeded government advice to stay in their homes as security forces advanced.
Now many of those residents lack even basic services, with water supplies cut by the fighting, and U.N. and government aid distributions unable to reach all of those in need. Some residents are moving from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of food or to escape the bombardment.
Meanwhile, in areas still controlled by the Islamic State, a siege by security forces is slowly tightening, pushing up food prices and causing shortages while the militants prevent people from leaving. Iraq is struggling to meet the needs of 3.2 million people displaced over the past three years during fighting against the Islamic State.
To limit the displacement from Mosul, the government airdropped leaflets over the city telling civilians to stay put.
But few commanders expect the battle to finish anytime soon, and the misery unfolding in Mosul is expected to worsen as winter sets in.
Reaching people inside the city is risky for humanitarian agencies, which also say they do not have enough aid to meet the need.
This month, Iraqi counterterrorism forces escorted a truck carrying bottled water into the neighborhood of Zuhoor, which had been retaken two days earlier. People quickly crowded around to grab whatever they could. “Is there any food?” they clamored. “We don’t have any food.”
Because of the shortages, some residents have decided to leave the recently reclaimed neighborhoods and move to others on the city’s edge that are better supplied.
Only people who end up in the camps are included among the official number of displaced – 100,000 people – and the United Nations says it has no way to gauge how many internally displaced are in the city.
Jassim al-Attiyah, Iraq’s deputy minister for migration and displacement, estimated that more than 150,000 are displaced within the city and that hundreds of thousands of others remain in their homes but still need aid.
“There is some aid, but it’s a big battle,” he said.
On the far eastern outskirts of the city, Haitham Mazin, 40, his wife and three children are living with a relative in Gogjali, where water and food are distributed more frequently, and some medical assistance is available.
Mazin had wanted his family to stay in their home in the Zahra neighborhood after the area was retaken by Iraqi security forces, but the food and fuel he had stockpiled ran out. He said aid distributions were haphazard, and while some people with connections to security forces had received enough assistance even to sell some, other families including his had gone without.
Dependent on well water, which is not safe to drink, residents had fought when water supplies arrived, he said.
“We became like beggars,” he said. “The government at the beginning told us to stay home, but they didn’t provide anything for us.”
