In just 24 hours almost 2,400 Iraqi civilians fled western Mosul, where government forces are battling the Islamic state for control, officials said Sunday.
The Minister of Displacement and Migration, Jasem Mohammed al-Jaff, said field operational personnel received the displaced people fleeing the fighting from about noon Saturday to about noon Sunday.
They have been sheltered in al-Jada’a refugee camp and al-Qayyara airport south of Mosul.
Al-Jaff added that the total number had reached 3,888 people since the launch of the military operation in western Mosul on February 19.
On Saturday, Iraq’s Federal Police tweeted that more than 50 civilians were killed or injured by landmines since Friday night as they fled a village about 9 miles west of Mosul.
Neighborhood ‘liberated’ from ISIS
ISIS opened fire with mortars and small arms while civilians fled Ma’moun, Major Mustafa Al-Iraqi of the Counterterrorism Service said Sunday.
“Counterterrorism forces liberated the al-Ma’moun neighborhood and raise the Iraqi flag above the buildings,” Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rasheed Yarallah, commander of Iraqi forces in Nineveh, said.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s Federal Police defused a vehicle placed by ISIS with a large container of “1,000 liters of poisonous gas” near the Mosul airport, Raed Shaker Jawdat, commander of Iraqi federal police, said in a statement.
In the al-Jawsaq neighborhood of Mosul, 25 internally displaced families were transported to refugee camps, Jawdat said.