Médecins Sans Frontières - Iraq – Dire situation in Western Mosul (ENG)

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF192861

Date taken / Date Recorded 09/04/2017 12:00 AM

Country Iraq

Commissioning section MSF-FRANCE

Copyright MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) Advertising Campaign, External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★ (F)

Video format h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 3m29s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 364.84 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist After re-taking control of eastern Mosul, in February the Iraqi security forces launched with the support of an international coalition an offensive on the western part of the city.
It is estimated that 400,000 people are trapped in western Mosul.
These casualties have just arrived in MSF’s hospital in Hammam Al-Alil south of Mosul.
The team in this specialised trauma unit treat patients wounded by bullets, bomb blasts or shrapnel. Most of the wounded are brought to the hospital having been stabilised in medical posts set up by the army near the frontline. Opened six weeks ago, the hospital has already treated 1,400 patients, half of them women and children.

Ana Leticia NERY, doctor, MSF (in English)
They usually come in big waves, so in the same day we can receive up to 50 injured, sometimes within one hour. And they all come together, they are family units that come together not just single patients – so it's a really intensive project, intensive activity.

As the fighting intensified in February, MSF opened several facilities in the region. The teams are working in hospitals and maternity centres in and around Mosul and are providing primary health and mental health services in clinics set up in several displaced persons camps.

HAKIM KHALDI, project coordinator, MSF (en français)
This is an emergency. During the operation to retake eastern Mosul, in three months we treated around 1,300 casualties and 200,000 people were displaced. In the battle to recapture western Mosul, we’ve treated the same number, but in the space of just one month.

The situation of the 400,000 people still in west Mosul is particularly alarming.

Ana Leticia NERY, doctor, MSF (in English)
The areas we have visited in Western Mosul, there is huge infrastructural damage, most of the houses have been destroyed during the offensive, the military offensive. There are food needs, there is no water and sanitation system as most of it has been destroyed during the war. There is an overall lack of supplies, there's no education system in place, no vaccination, no primary health care access and no obstetric care.

The teams working at the hospital in Qayyarah are seeing the consequences of the deterioration in living conditions in Mosul and the hardship in the displaced persons camps and their impact on children’s health.

ROSANNA MENEGHETTI, paediatrician, MSF (in English)
The children coming from Mosul, most of the parents were forced to give the children food that is not appropriate for the age, like yoghourt or flour with water, or sugar with water, for children less than six months. They can have war injuries, bomb blasting or other kind of severe injuries. It’s frequent to find children with bronchiolitis also in our countries, but here there are a lot, probably because the virus spreads very easily in the tents, as the tents are overcrowded, and the children are very small.

For the hundreds of thousands of people who’ve been forced to flee, the harsh conditions in the camps only add to the psychological scars left by the war and the uncertainty about their return to a city largely reduced to rubble.