14 March 2017•Update: 15 March 2017
By Muayad al-Tarfi
BAGHDAD
The total number of Iraqis to have been displaced from western Mosul now stands at 111,000, according to Iraqi Minister of Displacement and Migration Jassim al-Jaff, who added that the ongoing displacement rate had reached between 7,000 and 8,000 people per day.
Al-Jaff made the assertions at a Monday parliamentary session convened in the presence of several government ministers -- including those of health and planning -- to discuss the crisis.
"The daily displacement rate from western Mosul now stands at between 7,000 and 8,000 people,” he said. “Sometimes this number reaches as high as 13,000.”
According to the minister, the crisis will only be resolved once displaced populations return to their homes in liberated parts of Mosul and local infrastructure -- damaged by weeks of fighting -- is repaired.
Al-Jaff noted that more than 140 tons of food aid had recently been delivered to civilian residents of western Mosul, while additional amounts had been delivered to the eastern side of the city.
On Sunday, the minister put the number of people to have fled western Mosul since Feb. 19 -- when fresh army operations were launched to capture the area from the Daesh terrorist group -- at some 100,000.
The latest offensive comes as part of a wider campaign launched last October to retake the entire city, which Daesh overran in mid-2014.
