The Mosul Operation: An Interim Open-Source Assessment of Conflict-Related Environmental Damage

Feb 21, 2017 | Wim Zwijnenburg
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As the Mosul Operations slowly progress, a myriad of open-source information is emerging from both Ninawa province and other areas where intense fighting took place earlier indicating that the ongoing battle has left a disastrous environmental legacy on Iraq’s landscape. This could pose acute and chronic human health risks to Iraqi communities that are already struggling with the humanitarian consequences of the war. Large scale displacement, war-related trauma and lack of basic services have grave impacts on public health, and now many communities could also be affected by a polluted environment as the fighting around some of Iraq’s main oil and industrial facilities continues, combined with the scorched earth tactics employed by the so-called Islamic State (IS).