Almost 10,000 children displaced by the operation to take Mosul from followers of the so-called Islamic State are in “urgent need” of humanitarian assistance, says UNICEF.
More than 20,000 people have been displaced in total since the operation began and the UN Children’s Fund estimates that 9,700 of them are children.
Pernille Ironside, UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Iraq, said after visiting one of the “screening sites” that she had met mothers and children who “were so relieved to have come out alive; it was clear that they had gone through so much”.
Families who reach the screening sites, where they spend half a day before being transferred to an emergency camp, are given drinking water and snacks that include nutritional supplements for children. Those aged between six months and 15-years-old are also vaccinated against polio and measles.
Iraqi forces entered the city of Mosul for the first time in their fight to retake the city which fell to IS in June, 2014. It’s believed there are some 5,000 IS fighters in the city.
