ISIL prevents civilians from fleeing Mosul's Old City

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By CGTN's Tony Cheng

In Iraq, fierce fighting continues for control of Mosul’s Old City. It's ISIL's last stronghold and Iraqi forces are advancing. Thousands of civilians are caught in the crosshairs.

The UN believes up to 150,000 civilians are trapped in Mosul's Old City where the ISIL extremists want to keep them as human shields, and are shooting people trying to flee.

Displaced Iraqis arrive at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul, June 16, 2017. /VCG Photo‍

Since October, Iraqi forces have been battling ISIL militants in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. The extremists now control only a handful of neighborhoods in and around the Old City.

Lise Grande, the UN deputy special representative and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said that "conditions in the Old City are desperate," with very little food and no clean water, and the UN expects almost everyone to try to get out, "probably 120,000 to 150,000 civilians."

Displaced Iraqis arrive at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul, June 16, 2017. /VCG Photo

Grande stressed that ISIL fighters are making it extremely difficult to leave the Old City by surrounding it with concrete walls shaped like upside-down T's, and along the walls placing snipers who are shooting "anyone who's trying to escape."

(With inputs from AP)

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