The battle for Mosul

• Prize
• Photographer
  Tommy Trenchard, Sierra Leone

On 19th February 2017 Haider al-Abadi, the Iraqi Prime Minister,
announced the start of the offensive to retake western Mosul from
ISIS, who had controlled the city since 2014.

Surrounded on all sides by Iraqi forces, the militants dug in for the
long haul, using car bombs, snipers, mortars and grenade-laden
drones to slow the troops advance.

As the fighting intensified, civilians began to flee the city in their
thousands, ending up in a series of hastily erected IDP camps.

Western Mosul is ISIS' last major stronghold in Iraq and it's fall
would be a bitter blow for the group, whose caliphate was
announced here, in the city's central mosque, in 2014.