Roadside bomb kills 7 civilians escaping Islamic State in Kirkuk

Salahuddin (IraqiNews.com) Seven civilians were killed and eight others were wounded when a roadside bomb killed them in Salahuddin’s northern mountainous region of Hamreen, a security source has said.

The source told Alsumaria News that the group was fleeing Islamic State stronghold town of Hawija, Kirkuk.

Islamic State militants, having taken control over several Iraqi cities in 2014 to proclaim a so-called “Islamic Caliphate”, have deliberately targeted civilians who attempted to escape the group’s domains, according to aid groups and news reports.

Kirkuk’s Hawija is one of the few remaining IS pockets in Iraq, and the group has been sustaining serious losses in Mosul, its biggest bastion in Iraq, since security forces, backed by an international military coalition and popular militias, launched a wide-scale operations last October to retake the city.

Since the start of operations in Mosul, at least 178.000 civilians fled their hometowns in Mosul and Kirkuk, according to the |raqi displacement ministry, and the United Nations estimates that military operations against the extremist group could force at least one million out of their homes.

The UN had estimated more than 3 million people internally displaced in Iraq, and news reports have shed light on food and medicine shortages at refugee camps.