Story highlights Fierce fighting rages in northwest of Iraq's second-largest city

5,000 have fled each day since push to retake Mosul began

ISIS used 22 car bombs in first 72 hours of operation

Mosul, Iraq (CNN) The little boy in the yellow jacket runs and jumps, alternatively waving and wiping the dust off his face. In his right hand is a strip of white cloth, intended to show he and his family are civilians. His parents are exhausted and wary, having left their home in west Mosul's Mushairfa neighborhood, but the little boy can barely contain his excitement.

Behind him, struggling against the dusty headwind, stretches a line of dozens of people, their heads bent down, trudging up a dirt track. A teenage boy in a red track suit carries a bundle on his head, his mother to his left, in the mandatory black abaya, or robe, a bundle on her head as well. Somewhere along the way she has discarded her face cover, khmar, without which ISIS would not let women in Mosul leave their houses.

Residents from northwest Mosul flee fighting between Iraqi security forces and ISIS during a sandstorm carrying few belongings and their children in their arms.

Since last Friday, the day after Iraqi forces began what they hope is the final push to crush ISIS in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, around 5,000 residents have fled the city every day, according to Iraqi officers processing civilians.

"People are dying," says Khalda, a bearded man carrying his son in his arms. "For the past four or five months, there has been nothing. No food, no medicine, nothing."

It's hard to speak for long with the people fleeing Mosul. They're in a hurry, and they've been walking for hours. Khalda's young son, holding a box of juice in one hand and a pack of biscuits in the other, is impatient and squirming. Khalda's wife has gone on ahead and calls for him to get moving.

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