The situation in Mosul remains tough, with its residents having extremely limited access to health facilities, despite all the efforts of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and other humanitarian organizations, Peter Hawkings said. The official has recently paid a personal visit to Mosul to hand over equipment to a public health laboratory and witnessed the situation on the ground.

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“What we need to understand is the extent of the problem. This is a massive city. Mosul city probably faced one of the biggest urban warfares since World War II and 2.2 – 2.4 million people affected. It’s an enormous challenge to everybody to try and clear everything up and get the people working again,” Hawkings told RT.

The city is still struggling to adjust some seven months after it was “liberated” from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists by Iraqi troops, backed by the US-led coalition. West Mosul has suffered the most, enduring a months-long siege and heavy bombardment, and the situation there is still worse than in other parts of the city.

“If you’re in the east side it’s much better, on the west side the level of devastation was extraordinary. But wherever you are, the number of healthcare centers, hospitals is very limited, the extent of the damage has affected it,” Hawkings said.

“You have to understand the massive extent of devastation,” he added. “It’s a wide area, wide levels of devastation, families have to walk enormous distances to be able to get the health care.”

While both local and international aid workers are working hard to provide help to the citizens of Mosul, they still have “months to go to continue to try and get the healthcare services up and running to the extent we all wanted them to be,” Hawkings stressed.

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