ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – More than 5,000 civilians are threatened with starvation and disease in Hazar, an ISIS-controlled town west of Mosul that remains besieged by the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries. “More than 5,000 civilians in the township of Hazar and its sub-district of Tal Abta are trapped and besieged,” said town mayor Ali Ahmedi, explaining that ISIS will not allow civilians to leave and the Hashd have the area surrounded force the collapse of ISIS rule. He said residents needed food, water and medicines but remained trapped. “They are threatened by death because of a lack of food and water,” he said, warning that chronic diseases had also broken out and were spreading. He appealed to all “associated parties” in Iraq for help. Hazar, a town near Tal Afar, fell to ISIS when the group swept across Iraq in a blitzkrieg in June 2014. Hashd forces announced Wednesday that they had taken over the airport in Tal Afar, a strategically important town whose recapture would cut the Sunni militants’ supply lines from Syria to Mosul in northern Iraq. A massive multi-pronged offensive to recapture Nineveh province from ISIS began last month, with Kurdish and Iraqi forces reclaiming large portions of territory from ISIS and the Hashd closing off the militants’ western supply lines from Syria to Mosul.
