A hospital in Qayara is one of the few locations that can legally issue a death certificate in northern Iraq. However, the facilities there are primitive. When a body requires an autopsy or an identification, it is moved to a new facility that opened in eastern Mosul. In either case, many victims are currently buried across Mosul in gardens or by the side of the road, where they aren’t issued certificates. Eventually, they will have to be exhumed.
Kurdish officials in Kirkuk are demanding to know why an operation in Hawija, that should have begun before Iraqi forces attacked Mosul, has yet to be launched. The continuing presence of Islamic State militants in the Hawija region is a security threat for Kirkuk. Also, the region is the source of a large number of displaced people. The number of persons displaced in Nineveh province and the towns of Shirqat and Hawija has reached 526,281, according to the Iraqi government.
At least 165 were killed and 125 were wounded in recently reported violence:
In Mosul, 34 security personnel were killed and 76 more were wounded over the last 18 days in the Matahen and Yarmouk districts. Explosives killed 38 civilians in Kour. A missile killed seven cleaners and wounded five more. An airstrike on Sabuniya left 20 militants dead. Seventeen militants were killed and six female members were wounded in operations in Abar and Tanak. A strike killed 15 in Hadar. Eight militants were killed in central Mosul clashes. To avoid attrition, militants mutilated 33 of their own for deserting the battlefields, instead of executing them.
Eight people were killed in a bombing in Ramadi.
A bomb in Madaen left one dead and four wounded.
A security member was wounded in a mortar attack on Abu Garma.
In Hawija, three displaced children died of starvation or lack of medical supplies while awaiting the chance to find shelter. Two militants were executed for murdering another.
Residents of Rawah killed three militants.
Two militants were killed in Tarmiya.
Six militant leaders were killed in an airstrike on an undisclosed location.
