UN Lacks Data on Civilian Casualties From Anti-Daesh Campaign in Iraq’s Mosul

The United Nations does not possess information about civilian deaths caused by the anti-Daesh campaign in Mosul.

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) — The United Nations so far has no reliable data on civilian casualties from ongoing military operations to seize Iraq’s northern city of Mosul from Daesh militants, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a briefing Tuesday.

“At least from my office, we don’t have any casualty figures to share with you,” Dujarric told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

Casualty figures will be made public as soon as they are available from UN agencies represented on the ground, the spokesman for the secretary-general’s office pledged.

Earlier Monday, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said the United Nations continues to receive reports of mass execution of civilians near Mosul by the Islamic State.

Members of the terror group, Colville said, have also used civilians as human shields in the city, where Iraqi forces backed by a US-led international coalition began a liberation campaign last week.

Mosul was captured by Daesh in June 2014 and has been under its control since then.