Alalam - Iraq

At a Kurdish checkpoint in the town of Bartella, 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) east of Mosul, internally displaced people (Iraqi IDP) were on Friday being treated for illnesses and injuries before being taken to camps further away.

Many of the IDPs passing through the checkpoint told AP they had lost everything in Mosul.

Meanwhile residents of territories south of Mosul were brought back to their homes by Iraqi Nineveh police on Friday.

When the operation to liberate Mosul began they were forced by ISIS militants to leave their houses and were brought to Mosul as human shields.

After the liberating Eastern districts of Mosul they were able to leave the city go back to their own villages and towns.

Mohaamed Masoud, Chief of Nineveh police Says: "ISIS displaced them. They displaced them to Mosul. When they (ISIS) flee from the south of Mosul they used these people as human shields."

The number of Iraqis leaving the restive city of Mosul to refugee camps has soared to nearly 73000 since military operations to retake the city from ISIS terrorists launched in October, according to the International Organization of Migration (IOM).

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