2,000 Iraqis displaced per day: Minister

By Haydar Hadi

BAGHDAD

Around 2,000 Iraqi civilians are being displaced every day due to the ongoing military operations against Daesh militants in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi minister said.

Speaking at a press conference in the capital Baghdad on Monday, Immigration Minister Derbaz Mohammed said more than 50,000 people have been displaced so far from Havice district in Kirkuk in northern Iraq alone.

“Nearly 200 people are being removed from their homes in Havice every day,” he said during the presser with Lise Grande, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator for Iraq.

Mohammed said displaced civilians are being accommodated in tent camps.

“We have planned to accommodate at least 750,000 people in tent camps,” he said. “Our forecast now is that 500,000 people would become internally displaced. But this number might rise up.”

Grande, for her part, said the UN has been following up the ongoing military operations in Mosul.

“We have noticed that extraordinary measures were taken for civilians’ security concerns,” she said.

Last month, the Iraqi army -- backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and local allies on the ground -- launched a wide-ranging operation aimed at retaking Mosul, which was overran by Daesh in mid-2014, along with vast swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq.

Recent months have seen the Iraqi army and its allies retake much territory from the terrorist group, especially on Mosul’s outskirts and in Iraq’s western Anbar province.