MOSUL, Iraq - A family of 23 trying to escape ISIS and reach Iraqi army lines in the embattled neighborhoods of western Mosul was caught by the radicals and killed in a booby-trapped house.

After their bodies were discovered, they were buried at Wadi Aggap cemetery in west Mosul.

The Kurdish family was from Zummar. When ISIS took over large portions of northern Iraq in 2014, the group forced the family to move to Mosul.

The family, who was living in Tanka neighborhood, tried to flee from ISIS, but was caught. Militants put them into a house and welded the doors and windows shut to prevent them from fleeing.

An ISIS bomb destroyed the house, killing the whole family.

“We were informed through someone that they were from Zummar,” said a relative of the mass killed family. 

Fatima Mohammed, another relative of the victims sighed, “I have not seen such an outrageous incident in the world. What should I say when children, pregnant women, 10 to 12 men from one family, girls, including university graduates, and those who memorized the Quran were all killed by ISIS?” 

Nearly 150,000 civilians are believed to be caught in the crossfire of an accelerating battle between the army and the remaining ISIS militants in western Mosul where Iraqi forces continue to close in on the last holdout of the jihadist fighters in the city, senior military officials told Rudaw Monday. 

According to the army five neighbourhoods including the devastated Old Town district still remain in ISIS control where the bulk of the remaining populations are trapped.

Photos by Yousif Musa