Ensure civilian safety in Mosul

Senior UN officials have cautioned that the humanitarian crisis in Mosul could outlive Iraqi military operations and this is a matter that calls for serious remedial measures.

When the military operation to oust terrorists from the area began on Oct.17, 2016, 1.5 million civilians were living in Mosul. In the eastern part of the city, some 400,000 are now free of control by Daesh.

"However, the western part of the city, an area that is much more densely populated and home to 750,000, unfortunately remains under Daesh control," said an editorial on Friday.

Military operations to retake that part of the city are expected to begin in late February or early March.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, has pointed out that civilians in Mosul are at an extremely high risk and they represent 47 per cent of all casualties in the military operation so far.

According to a London-based research group, Iraqi Body Count, violence and military operations claimed the lives of more than 16,000 civilians in Iraq last year.

"A total of 16,361 civilian Iraqis died in 2016, with the northern province of Nineveh the worst hit at 7,431 people killed. The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, was next with 3,714 civilians killed," The Gulf Today's editorial said.

Comparatively, in 2015, 17,578 people were killed and in 2014, 20,218 were killed.

It added that the deadliest Daesh attack came in July, when a massive suicide bombing in a bustling market area in central Baghdad killed almost 300 people, the bloodiest single attack in the capital in 13 years of war.

The group considered five cause-of-death categories: executions by militants; suicide attacks; bomb explosions; gunfire not involving execution, and air attacks and shelling.

Last year, the greatest causes of death were execution and gunfire, which accounted for more than half of all civilian deaths.

"Civilians are the biggest victims in Mosul," the paper cautioned.

"Dreaded Daesh is targeting them. They are also being shot as they try and leave the city and they are being shot as they try and secure food and other resources," it added.

Since Daesh’s rise in Iraq, 4.5 million people have fled their homes. Depending on how the military operations in Mosul progress, another one million could end up displaced. And the return process, as Grande notes, is quite difficult.

It underlined that the safety, security and protection of the common people, especially women and children, in Mosul are of paramount concern.

"The international community cannot afford to show any laxity on this front," the paper concluded.