MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - An Iraqi intelligence officer who supervises a screening center in Mosul says that over the past week between 1,500 and 2,000 people fleeing Islamic State held territory pass through his position each day.
Col. Khalid Jaburi says those suspected of having ties with IS are held in an abandoned amusement park next door to an abandoned hotel in the city’s east.
The United Nations says the number of people fleeing is between 2,000 and 3,500 each day.
Iraqi forces are closing in on the last pockets of IS control in Mosul’s Old City neighborhood, an area less than one square kilometer (one square mile).
The fight to retake Mosul has lasted nearly nine months and displaced more than 897,000 people, according to the U.N.
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