4,000 civilians are trapped in West Mosul

GENEVA REUTERS March 23 - About 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in the Islamic State-held Old City of western Mosul, short of food and basic needs as the battle between the militants and government forces rages around them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.

  
 Many fear fleeing because of Islamic State snipers and landmines. But 157,000 have reached a reception and transit centre outside Mosul since the government offensive on the city’s west side began a month ago, said Bruno Geddo, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Iraq.   

 “The worst is yet to come because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork-popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions,” he said.    Fighting in the past week has focused on the Old City, with government forces reaching as close as 500 metres to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

   The hardline militants are now on the back foot, with their stronghold in Syria also under attack. But they still hold an estimated 40 percent of western Mosul and the campaign to recapture it could yet take weeks.