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400,000 children still displaced from Mosul fighting - Save the Children

by Reuters
Sunday, 15 October 2017 21:01 GMT

Displaced Iraqi children who fled from Islamic State militants wait for a security check in Mosul, Iraq July 3, 2017. Picture taken July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

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"Just because the fighting in Mosul has stopped doesn't mean the humanitarian needs aren't great"

BAGHDAD, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Around 400,000 children are still displaced from the fighting for Mosul, one year after the start of a military offensive to recapture the Iraqi city from the Islamic State, Save the Children said on Monday.

Islamic State's self-declared caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces re-took Mosul, the group's de facto capital in Iraq, after a gruelling nine-month battle.

"Just because the fighting in Mosul has stopped doesn't mean the humanitarian needs aren't great. If anything, children need our help now more than ever - those that are still displaced and those that are returning to see what's left of their homes," said the London-based charity's Iraq country director, Ana Locsin.

"Large parts of Mosul have been reduced to rubble; schools, homes, hospitals, roads, playgrounds and parks. I've spoken to dozens of children haunted by their experiences, left with psychological scars that'll take years to heal," Locsin said in a statement.

With the fall of Mosul and other small towns in the country's north and west, the only area still under control of Islamic State in Iraq is a stretch alongside the western border with Syria, where the militant group is also in retreat.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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