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After securing eastern Mosul in January, Iraqi Security Forces are now battling fighters from the Islamic State for control of the western part of the city. Because neighbourhoods on the west bank of the Tigris River are far more densely populated and tightly packed than those in the east, fighting there has sparked the highest wave of displacement since the Iraqi government-led offensive to retake the city officially began last October. More than 235,000 have fled their homes since the operations in western Mosul began on February 19th, with an average of 6,000 people a day arriving in sprawling camps for the displaced south and east of Mosul.
Mosul’s displaced — who, as of the beginning of April 2017, numbered around 300,000 — survived nearly three years of brutal ISIL rule only to be bombed and blasted from their homes during the battle for control of the city. Many lost loved ones or were injured in the crossfire. Some were used as human shields by ISIL fighters, forced to move further and further west as Iraqi Security Forces gained ground to the east and south. All are uncertain if or when they will return home, as the five-month-long fight for Iraq’s second largest city grinds on.
International Medical Corps is running health clinics in displacement camps, while also supporting eight medical facilities in east and southwest Mosul to ensure thousands of families have access to care and other essential services.
Here are three of their stories.
Ibrahim
Three-year-old Ibrahim was with his family eating breakfast in their home in east Mosul last December when the mortar hit. His mother recalls he was too stunned by the blast to initially feel pain, though shrapnel had sliced into his head, beside his right eye, and cheek.
Ibrahim’s father was also hit. His right arm and left leg were severed in the blast. He died before the family could get him to the nearest clinic.
“The shrapnel stayed [in Ibrahim’s head] for four days,” recalled his mother. “I wasn’t expecting him to survive.”
When they escaped Mosul, they were met by doctors and nurses at an International Medical Corps trauma stabilisation point, who provided emergency care before sending them on to Erbil for further treatment. Ibrahim’s uncle travelled with him to a hospital in Erbil, where he had three surgeries.
It was too late to save his eye.
He now lives with his mother, three siblings and grandparents in Khazer camp, not far from where the trauma stabilisation point that cared for him a few months earlier once stood. His wounds still healing, Ibrahim’s mother brings him to International Medical Corps’ clinic in the camp for regular dressing of his healing.
“We are surviving,” his mother said. “I just want to guarantee a future for my children.”
Abdi
Abdi, his wife and four children fled their home in west Mosul on January 27th. “The bombs fell down like rain,” he recalled, sitting on the floor of the tent that now serves as his home. “I was afraid for my family, for my neighbours…There was a lot of smoke from bombs and explosions.”
His uncle was too sick to run, so Abdi and other members of his family carried him in a bedsheet as they made their way south. It wasn’t until they crossed into territory firmly held by Iraqi Security Forces south of the city that he began to feel safe.
They are now settled in a dome-shaped tent in Hammam al-Alil, a growing camp roughly 15 miles south of Mosul. Thousands of people arrive at the site every day from west Mosul, where they go through a security screening before they are assigned to a camp or allowed to travel on to meet family in east Mosul and the surrounding areas.
“The camp is good,” he said. “The things we need are here. We left with only our souls. Our situation is very hard. We don’t rest. We are tired.”
Zeena
Zeena remembers a time when her family never went without. Her husband made a decent salary working in the Turkish consulate that afforded them a modest home and put food on the table. This all changed when ISIL took control of Mosul in June 2014.
“Our life was cut off,” Zeena said. “We didn’t have anything. We were hungry.”
She travelled with her daughters to a suburb of Mosul to work on a farm, where they tended crops and baked bread to try and make ends meet. Days turned to months, months turned to years, and the comfortable life they once knew became a distant memory.
In February 2017, the military operations to retake western Mosul began. Zeena, her husband and daughters were trapped inside their home for eight days as fighting raged on around them. “For eight days we had nothing to eat, nothing to drink,” said Zeena. “We only had God.”
When Iraqi Security Forces gained control of the area, they set out on foot south toward Hammam al-Alil, a displacement site roughly 15 miles from Mosul. “When we arrived, we rested,” she said. “The services are good here.”
While Zeena and her family feel safer in the camp, she remains concerned about what will come next for her and her family. She would like to return to Mosul when the war stops, but worries about how they will make ends meet with limited work opportunities and the costs of rebuilding their lives making that dream seem daunting.
She is also afraid for families still trapped inside Mosul.
“We are free,” she said. “We can eat and drink. There are large families in Mosul facing a tough situation. Children don’t have milk. The biscuits disappeared. We need international support for people still under daesh (ISIL) control. The support needs to come quickly because children will die of hunger.”
