Photos: AFP

MOSUL, Iraq — Lacking clean drinking water and access to utilities, the United Nation's (UN) humanitarian agency in Iraq announced approximately 42,000 people displaced from Mosul during the second week of the offensive to rid western Mosul of ISIS militants — "the highest continuous displacement since the Mosul crisis began on Oct. 17, 2016."

OCHR, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stated in the report released on Sunday, citing its own and its partners figures from Feb. 17 to March 5, that 13,350 people were displaced on March 3 alone.

"The vast majority of displacements this week were due to military operations in west Mosul, which resumed on 19 February," the report stated.

"Given the narrow streets and high population density in western Mosul city, civilians are at great risk of being caught in crossfire, and infrastructure is likely to sustain damage. Clean drinking water is also in very short supply in western Mosul, with only some neighborhoods in the north and northeast of western Mosul city apparently receiving water through the public network for several hours every few days."

In the past 24 hours, 12,458 people have fled from western Mosul, Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement stated on Saturday.

The Ministry said that 89,245 people have fled western Mosul since the launch of the third and current phase of the Mosul offensive on Feb 19.

The UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported 224,298 people have been displaced as of Sunday since the Mosul offensive began on Oct. 17.

"Significant shortages of drinking water also remain a priority humanitarian concern in eastern Mosul city," the OCHR report stated. "Humanitarian partners have been trucking 2,300 cubic-meters of water to approximately 28 neighborhoods since late January, supplementing municipal water supplies."

IOM figures are not cumulative and often don't correspond with government numbers because the IOM statistics only include people who enter camps which self-report numbers, and not people who displace to other places.