UNITED NATIONS: Some 15,000 children have fled Iraq’s Mosul city over the previous week where fighting between the security forces and the IS terror group is intensifying, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) announced. “Unicef is responding to the immediate needs at the Hamam Al Alil camp, 20 km from Mosul, where aid is provided to children upon their arrival,” the agency’s Regional Emergency Adviser Bastien Vigneau said on Friday.
He noted that the children were very scared of the sound of the bombs, which was one of the main reasons their parents had decided to flee.
They fled with very little luggage and in most cases with a bare minimum of clothes, Xinhua news agency reported.
The main priorities, other than the first emergency response, included health, to ensure that children were immunised, primarily against measles and polio, said Vigneau.
Matthew Sarmash, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr), said that a significant increase in displacement had been noticed in recent days and the Hamam Al Alil camp was close to reach its maximum capacity. At the moment, 150,000 places were occupied. He said construction is under way to accommodate up to 250,000 people there.
Vigneau said that more than 100,000 children have been displaced from Mosul since the military operations against the IS began in October 2016.
Meanwhile, twelve residents of Mosul were treated for injuries from a suspected chemical attack this week, an official with the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
The patients, who are being treated in hospital in nearby Irbil, are “showing clinical symptoms consistent with an exposure to a blistering chemical agent”, the organisation’s regional director for the Middle East, Robert Mardini, said on Friday. The five children, three women and four men have symptoms that include blisters, coughing, redness in the eyes, irritation, and vomiting, CNN reported. — IANS
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