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TIKRIT, Iraq, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Around 1,000 families left their homes on Thursday from a town under control of the Islamic State (IS) militants and besieged by Iraqi security forces in Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, a provincial security source told Xinhua.
The displaced families were tired of walking for long distances under high summer temperatures until they reached the security forces, the source said.
The people were suffering from lack of food and water, the source said, adding that three displaced women and a child have died of thirst and scorching weather, the source added.
Most of the displaced people are women and children. The military transferred them by vehicles to shelter at an abandoned silo and nearby buildings near the town of Baiji, some 200 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source said.
Previously, the families in Shirqat, some 280 km north of Baghdad, were prevented from leaving their homes by the IS militants who were using them as human shields against military attacks.
The siege and the troops' advance pushed most of the extremist militants to flee the town to the IS major stronghold in Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad.
The escape of most of the IS militants weakened their grip on the town and pave the way for hundreds of families to leave their homes pushed by total cut of electricity and acute shortage of food, drinking water and medicine due to the military siege.
The town also came under sporadic air strikes by the Iraqi and the U.S.-led coalition aircraft on suspected IS positions in the residential areas in Shirqat.
The latest exodus brought the number of families left Shirqat and surrounding villages to some 5,000 families during the past days, the source said.
Earlier in the month, the security forces and paramilitary units, known as Hashd al-Shaabi, advanced in the southern part of Nineveh province and recaptured the villages of Ich'hala and Imam in the south of the IS-held town of Qayyara, some 350 km north of Baghdad.
By retaking control of the two villages on the west side of Tigris River, the troops have cut off the IS supply routes from Mosul to the IS-held Shirqat and Hawijah, a town located some 45 km southeast of Shirqat.
As a result of escalating violence in the past two years, more than 3.4 million people are now displaced all over Iraq, with more than half being children.
On July 20, the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a report "the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is one of the largest, most complex and volatile in the world. Over 10 million Iraqis -- nearly a third of the population -- require some form of humanitarian assistance."
"During the next six months, massive waves of new displacement are expected across Iraq. As many as 2.5 million people may become newly displaced along the Anbar and Mosul corridors and in Mosul city," OCHA said.
Iraq has witnessed intense violence since the IS took control of parts of its northern and western regions in June 2014.
Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003 under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the country.
The war led to the ouster and eventual execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, but no WMD was found. Enditem
