ISIS used loudspeakers and ordered “killing anyone who tries to escape.” (Reuters)
The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said civilians in the Zanjili neighborhood in Mosul are living tragic circumstances as they are getting killed by ISIS while attempting to flee the group’s strongholds.
“ISIS is preventing civilians from fleeing. If they receive any information that someone is trying to escape or if they capture anyone while attempting to escape, he is immediately executed,” the observatory said in a report.
An eyewitness from the Zanjili neighborhood who managed to reach Iraqi security forces said that on 3 a.m. on Saturday, ISIS found the safe passage which families had been using to escape towards security forces.
“This passage is near the Pepsi factory. ISIS threw grenades on civilians who were gathering to escape then used machine guns to kill whoever insisted on escaping while some of them returned to Zanjili,” he added.
Another eyewitness said ISIS used loudspeakers and ordered “killing anyone who tries to escape,” and urged all its snipers to kill families who take the road that’s near the Pepsi factor.
Meanwhile, an official in the Nineveh local government said: “The massacre happened at 3 a.m. and ended 7 hours later. 250 civilians fell victims of the attack. The bodies are still on the road waiting to be removed.”
A medical source at the al-Azba hospital in Mosul said the wounded who made it to the hospital narrated horrific accounts of what happened, adding that according to one woman, ISIS opened fire on all people from all directions.
