Civilian victims of mortar, sniper fire pour into Mosul clinic
Iraqi military medics rushed a man whose mouth had been blown apart by mortar shrapnel into their temporary field clinic on the eastern edges of Mosul on November 22.
 |
| An injured man receives treatment by Iraqi special forces soldiers in Mosul, Iraq November 22, 2016. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani |
Seconds later, a boy with a large hole in his leg and one arm peppered with cuts from a shell blast was brought in on a stretcher. "That's already more than 30 people wounded today," a medic said. "And two dead."
All the victims are from areas closer to the center of Mosul and which Iraqi forces recaptured from Islamic State two weeks ago - but which they have sometimes struggled to secure as civilians remain within the range of the jihadists' mortar and sniper fire.
Black armored vehicles sped into the clinic run by the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) throughout the morning, ferrying in the casualties - an elderly man shot through the knee, another with a leg wound, a girl hit in the chest.
U.S.-backed forces fighting to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, the militant group's Iraqi stronghold, are facing stiff resistance from fighters using car bombs and human shields to slow their advance.
"Most casualties here are civilians," medic Mohammed, 23, said at the clinic in the Kokjali area. "Islamic State shell randomly or target civilians with mortar and sniper fire. Most of the wounded are from mortars."
A Reuters correspondent also saw a wounded soldier brought back from the front line a few kilometers (miles) to the west.
Mortar shells fired by Islamic State landed intermittently in the area while the medics from the CTS forces treated the wounded.
"Part of the problem is securing the areas the special forces have taken," Mohammed said. "If bigger army units or the federal police came in to clear the areas behind where CTS have advanced, maybe fewer people would be getting hurt, and it would make our job easier."
