Mosul humanitarian crisis not over: UN official

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq on Tuesday said the country remains one of the largest humanitarian and most volatile operations, with ongoing preparations for more evacuations in a final push again the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

Lisa Grande told journalists here that while Syria remains the biggest humanitarian operation, "more people have been displaced in Iraq, at a faster pace than in any other place in the world."

Humanitarian groups are preparing to deal with hundreds of thousands of people likely to be displaced in expected military operations in Tal Afar near Mosul in a final push against the IS.

"Although the fighting is over in Mosul, the humanitarian crisis is not," said Grande referring to the hard slog to regain Iraq's second largest city from the IS that was finally routed at the beginning of July.

From the time that IS, or ISIL as it is sometimes known, rose up in 2014, 5.3 million people have been displaced inside Iraq.

It took nine months of continuous fighting to take back the city of Mosul.

There had been 1.7 million civilians in the city, but the evacuation that took place during the fighting was the "largest managed evacuation in modern history with 955,000 people evacuated from the city," said Grande.

Grande noted that normally in an urban battle displacement of people is "chaotic."

People were evacuated from Mosul to prevent greater civilian casualties.

A total of 3.3 million people in Iraq are currently displaced, including the population of Mosul, most of whom still have not returned to their city.