联合国：近期将有20万伊拉克人逃离摩苏尔_时事

联合国：近期将有20万伊拉克人逃离摩苏尔

The United Nations said Tuesday that 200,000 Iraqi civilians could flee an Islamic State-controlled part of Mosul in the coming days.

The Iraqi government on Thursday urged civilians in the Old City of Mosul to flee their homes and cross to safety on the other side of government lines.

"When they issued this new instruction it represented a dramatic change and shift from the guidance that they had been previously providing," said Lise Grande, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Iraq.

She said there are three neighborhoods to the north of the Old City, as well as the Old City itself, where the civilians are trapped.

"We are deeply concerned about the safety of these civilians," Grande told reporters by video link from Baghdad. "We feel those civilians are probably at greater risk now than at any stage of the entire campaign."

She noted that the evacuation notice is not compulsory, and the Iraqi Security Forces would protect civilians who remain in the Old City.

When the military offensive to re-take Mosul began in the eastern part of the city last October, the U.N. feared a mass exodus of as many as 700,000 civilians. It did not happen, as a half-million residents stayed in their homes and rode out the fighting.

But when the army began liberating the western part of the city, residents fled at a much higher rate. Grande says 774,000 Iraqis have left Iraq's second largest city, which has been under IS control since 2017. The U.N. is providing assistance to all of them, as well as the half-million east Mosul residents who remained in their homes.