307 civilians killed, 273 wounded in western Mosul since February 17 – UN human rights chief

  28 March 2017    Read: 979
307 civilians killed, 273 wounded in western Mosul since February 17 – UN human rights chief
UN Human Rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has condemned the “massive loss of civilian lives in western Mosul,” where at least 307 people have been killed and 273 wounded in just over a month.
It comes just one day after Washington confirmed it will not be altering its rules of engagement in the war against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), even as US-led coalition forces face allegations of killing dozens of civilians in a recent airstrike in Mosul.

Should the allegations prove true, the March 17 airstrikes would be one of the deadliest single incidents involving civilian casualties in a recent conflict in which the US military was actively involved.

The UN warned that Iraqi and coalition forces “really need to take care in this situation,” and must carry out “thorough and transparent” investigations into civilian deaths.

The UN Human Rights Office also said that IS is herding civilians into buildings in western Mosul and using them as human shields, Reuters reported.

Some 400,000 civilians are still trapped in the Old City of Mosul, which is held by IS militants. They are facing food and electricity shortages, a representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iraq earlier told Reuters, adding that between 8,000 and 12,000 people flee the city daily.

The US insists that no more than 200 civilians have been killed in coalition airstrikes in Mosul, but the UK-based monitoring group Airwars says the number could be more than 10 times higher.

The UN also said last week that it was “profoundly concerned by the reports yesterday of a high number of civilian casualties in al-Jadida in Iraq, a densely-populated neighborhood in Mosul. Initial reports indicate hundreds of casualties.”

/RT/

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