The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said about 100,000 children in Mosul were in serious danger.

UNICEF said on Monday that children were being used as human shields in the conflict and "in some cases, they have been forced to participate in the fighting and violence."

"Children are experiencing and witnessing terrible violence that no human being should ever witness," the organization said. "Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure including hospitals, clinics, schools, homes and water systems should stop immediately," UNICEF said.

"We are receiving alarming reports of civilians including several children being killed in west Mosul. Some were reportedly killed as they desperately tried to flee the fighting which is intensifying by the hour," UNICEF reported.

Iraqi-led forces have been fighting to take control of the northern city from the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) group since October. Iraqi forces retook eastern Mosul in January and have made strides to capture the remaining sections still controlled by IS in the western part of the city.

The ongoing fighting in west Mosul is especially difficult for children, according to UNICEF

Caught in the crossfire

The push to take west Mosul has made the situation difficult for residents trapped there.

Although Iraqi forces say 90 percent of the city has been recaptured, IS has resisted efforts to drive their fighters out by using suicide car bombs and snipers to continue protecting their last strongholds. Anti-IS forces also claim the militants have used residents, including children, as human shields.

The plan to drive IS out of Mosul has led to many civilian casualties. The Pentagon admitted that one of its airstrikes on Mosul in March killed 105 non-combatants. The airstrike was meant for a nearby IS target and struck a building where families had sought refuge from the intense fighting.

"As the fighting continues, UNICEF calls on all parties in west Mosul to protect children and keep them out of harm's way at all times, in line with their obligations under humanitarian law," said UNICEF.

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters Hoping for help Perwin Ali Baku escaped the Islamic State after more than two years in captivity. The 23-year-old Yazidi woman was captured together with her 3-year-old daughter. "I don't feel right," she says, sitting on a mattress on the floor of her father-in-law's small hut in a northern Iraq refugee camp. "I still can't sleep and my body is tense all the time."

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters Tormenting flashbacks When Perwin hears a loud voice, she cringes at the thought of her captors. She hopes for help at the newly established institute in Iraq, part of an ambitious project funded by the German state of Baden Württemberg that has already brought 1,100 women who had escaped Islamic State captivity to Germany for psychological treatment.

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters Kabarto refugee camp Members of Germany's 100,000 strong Yazidi community reached out to help the women - and the Baden Württemberg state legislature approved a €95-million program ($106 million) over three years to bring women abused by the IS to Germany. Now, help is on the way on-site in Iraq.

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters No trauma treatment - yet As fighting rages between Iraqi forces and the IS in Mosul only about 75 km from Dohuk, the number of victims that make it to freedom increases daily. 26 psychiatrists work in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq with its population of 5.5 million and more than 1.5 million refugees and internally displaced people. None specialize in treating trauma.

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters Hope on the horizon German trauma specialist Jan Kizilhan, who has Yazidi roots but immigrated to Germany at the age of 6, is the driving force behind the new institute. The program will train local mental health professionals to treat people like Perwin and thousands of Yazidi women, children and other Islamic State victims.

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters Training psychotherapists The idea is to train 30 new professionals for three years and then extend the program to other regional universities: in ten years' time, there could be more than 1,000 psychotherapists in the area. Students will receive a double master's degree in psychotherapy and psychotraumatology according to German standards, and training from both local and German professors.

New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters Duty to help Kizilhan has interviewed thousands of women in refugee camps - and more recently, prospective students for the program's inaugural class: "We are talking about general trauma, we are talking about collective trauma and we are talking about genocide. That's the reason we have to help if we can - it's our human duty to help them." Author: Nadine Berghausen



kbd/jm (AFP, Reuters)