Thousands flee anti-Daesh offensives in Iraq and Syria

An Iraqi special forces soldier helps a family carry their children to cross from a Daesh-controlled part of Mosul to an Iraqi forces-held area on Saturday. (Reuters)

MOSUL: Tens of thousands of civilians have fled offensives against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, where the militants are battling to keep what remains of their territory, the UN said Sunday.
Daesh overran large areas of both countries in 2014, but the militant group has since lost ground to Iraqi forces and faced advances from different groups in Syria.
Amid intense fighting in recent days, the thousands of displaced have been seen arriving in areas outside Daesh control, many hungry and terrified after years under militant rule.
In Iraq, the offensive by US-backed Iraqi forces to retake west Mosul from Daesh has displaced more than 45,000 people in little more than a week, the UN migration agency said.
In neighboring Syria, more than 26,000 people have been forced to flee fighting in the country’s north in the same period from Feb. 25, said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a UN humanitarian agency.
Before the battle for Mosul was launched in October, a million-plus civilians were thought to still live inside Iraq’s second city, which is Daesh’s last major bastion in the country.
Iraqi forces backed by US airstrikes in January retook the eastern side of the city, which is divided by the river Tigris, before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely populated west.
They launched a major push to recapture west Mosul from Daesh on Feb. 19, retaking the airport and then pushing up into the city from the south.
Families escaping the battle for west Mosul have arrived in droves at sites for the displaced in the past week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
On Saturday, Iraq’s minister of displacement and migration criticized UN-led efforts to aid those displaced by the fighting, while the UN said that such assistance is the “top priority.”
More than 200,000 are currently displaced as a result of the Mosul operation, while more fled but later returned to their homes, according to the IOM.
In Syria, OCHA said 26,000 people had fled areas where government forces backed by Russian air power have been waging a fierce offensive against Daesh.
Those areas lie east of the town of Al-Bab, which Turkey-backed fighters seized from Daesh on Feb. 23 after several months of fighting in another advance on the militant group.
The UN agency said the nearly 40,000 people displaced from the town since November fled north to areas controlled by other rebel forces.
Many have sought refuge in areas around Manbij, a town controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
An AFP correspondent in Manbij said that long queues of families were still forming at checkpoints leading to the town on Sunday.
Pick-up trucks full of children and women wearing full black veils were being searched by SDF personnel before being allowed to enter.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Saturday that 30,000 people had been displaced by the government’s offensive on Daesh.
The push is aimed at Daesh-held Khafsah, the main station pumping water into Aleppo.
Residents of Syria’s second city, under full regime control since December, have been without mains water for 48 days after the militants cut the supply.
On Sunday, Russian and regime warplanes bombarded Daesh positions in support of Syrian troops, which had advanced to around 11 km from Khafsah, the Observatory said.
Since war broke out in Syria in March 2011, more than half of its pre-war population has been forced to flee their homes.
Aleppo province hosts tens of thousands of displaced Syrians, many in camps near the Turkish border.
“We left our homes with nothing: no fuel, no bread. Our children are starving,” said Jumana, a 25-year old Syrian woman who fled the clashes with her two children.
Turkey launched an unprecedented military campaign inside Syria in August, backing opposition rebels to fight Daesh. But it views the Syrian Kurds who lead the SDF as “terrorists.”
The SDF are pressing an advance toward retaking the group’s de-facto capital of Raqqa, backed by a US-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria and Iraq since 2014.