GENEVA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- As thousands of people are fleeing Tal Afar, a city west of Mosul, since a military campaign began on Sunday to retake the city from the Islamic State (IS), UN agencies of health and migration are providing emergency aids to meet their needs.
Tal Afar, some 70 km west of the newly-liberated city of Mosul, is the last IS redoubt in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh. The town and surrounding areas are inhabited by some 350,000 people, whose majority is Sunni and Shiite Turkomans, in addition to the minority of Kurds and other minorities.
Most of the civilians fleeing the crisis in Tal Afar had to walk for hours in arduous conditions before reaching safe areas, many arriving exhausted and in poor health, and often with critical levels of malnutrition among children, some unable to move.
In cooperation with local partners, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN migration agency, is directly delivering medical assistance, non-food items and shelter to vulnerable displaced people from Talafar, IOM said in a statement.
During the past four days, two IOM emergency sites about 60 km south of Mosul have received more than 3,200 individuals, and thousands more are expected to flee in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) and health partners, in collaboration with local health authorities, have established static and mobile medical clinics to offer lifesaving emergency and primary health care services.
Emergency medical supplies, trauma, and emergency health kits have also been delivered to field hospitals and primary health care centers in Hammam Al-Alil, a small town south of Mosul, to cope with the number of people fleeing from the conflict areas.
