Water cuts and rising food prices leave Mosul facing crisis
Fighting between Iraqi troops and Islamic State militants has cut water supplies across a large part of Mosul, where poorer families are already struggling to feed themselves, and a local official said the increasingly encircled city was in crisis.
Water was cut to 650,000 people – or 40 percent of residents – when a pipeline was hit during fighting between the jihadists and U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces trying to crush them in their northern Iraq stronghold, a local official said.
“We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Hussam al-Abar, a member of Mosul’s Nineveh provincial council, adding that 1.5 million people were still inside Mosul.
The battle for Mosul has already raged for six weeks. An alliance of Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led air power, have surrounded it and elite troops have seized eastern districts, but face deadly and determined resistance.
Aid workers say a full siege is developing and fear that the longer the conflict drags on, the more civilians will suffer.
“Key informants are telling us that poor families are struggling to put sufficient food on their tables,” U.N Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, told Reuters. “This is very worrying.”
Others are hoarding and hiding food as they expect prices to rise further.
PRICES MAY DOUBLE
The capture of Mosul, Islamic State’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq, is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate which the militants declared in Iraq and Syria after sweeping through Sunni populated northern and western Iraqi provinces in 2014.
Iraqi government and Kurdish forces surround the city from the north, east and south, while Popular Mobilization forces – a coalition of Iranian-backed Shi’ite groups – are trying to close in from the west.
Last week Popular Mobilization fighters cut the supply route to Mosul from the Syrian half of Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, driving up prices in the city.
Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi’ite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international military coalition.
Press journalist for HRO media – Khizer Hayat reports.
Category: Arab uprising
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