Official: 120 corpses under rubble in western Mosul district

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) There are 120 corpses of civilians waiting to be extracted from under debris of homes destroyed by battles in western Mosul, according to a local official.

Alsumaria News quoted Hossam al-Abbar, a member of the Nineveh province council, saying that there were 120 civilian corpses under the rubbles of some homes in Mosul al-Jadida, west of Mosul. “Those bodies need to be extracted by civil defense teams. The shortage in drilling and rescue tools delays the process,” Abbar stated.

He said those bodies have remained there since security forces began operations to retake the neighborhood, which ended successfully on March 13th with the total recapture of the district.

Abbar, who explained that the victims died in an airstrike, blamed Islamic State militants for civilian deaths, accusing them of using citizens as human shields.

Abbar was quoted Wednesday saying that 70 civilian corpses were extracted from both eastern and western Mosul over the past weeks. Anadolu Agency quoted a civil defense source on the same day saying ten bodies were pulled out from under debris in Mosul al-Jadida.

Dozens of civilians reportedly died since operations launched to retake Mosul in October. Drone strikes by Islamic State militants and airstrikes by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition fighter jets occasionally shared the blame.

So far, battles between security troops and militants in Mosul displaced at least 355.000 since October, according to Iraqi government data. The number of refugees fleeing western Mosul alone stood recently at 181.000.