Iraqi parliament committee: corpses continue to come out of Mosul rubbles

Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Relief teams in Mosul continue to extract corpses of civilians killed during the war against Islamic State militants on  a daily basis, and ambiguity persists as the total of bodies expected.

Ikhnews.com website quoted Abdul-Rahim al-Shamri, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Human Rights Committee, saying in press statements that “civil defense teams and municipal workers continue on a  daily basis to extract civilians’ corpses from the under the rubbles of Mosul city caused by the international coalition and Islamic State’s explosives”.

According to al-Shamri, “most of the corpses is concentrated in the Old City in western Mosul”.

“The number of civilian martyrs is still unknown due to the absence of an official statistics from the local and central government, but they can be counted in thousands according to estimates and eye-witnesses”, said al-Shamri.

“The extent of damage and death toll is much larger in…the Old City,” said the parliament member.

As Iraqi troops recaptured areas held by Islamic State militants since 2014, they have regularly run into mass graves of civilians and security agents executed by militants over accusations of fleeing the group’s havens or collaborating with security forces.

Iraqi troops recaptured Mosul in July after more than eight months of operations. It was the place from where Islamic State declared its self-styled “caliphate” in June 2014.

Iraq’s war against the Islamic State displaced millions of civilians both inside and outside the country, and left thousands dead.

Iraq declared victory over Islamic State last December, ending a three-year war to bring down the group’s self-styled “caliphate” declared from Nineveh’s Mosul in 2014. Security continues to comb recaptured areas for remnant cells.