VOA常速英语:丧心病狂：摩苏尔百姓被IS激进分子当做人肉盾牌

We are standing about 200 meters outside the Old City, and you can hear fighting behind me.Soldiers say the reason why we are not seeing civilians fleeing is not because they do not want to flee but because Islamic State militants are targeting them with sniper fire.

Besides IS snipers, Mosul residents are victims of airstrikes, car bombs, executions and mortars from both sides. Civilian death tolls are soaring.

As many as 8,000 people per day have fled Mosul in recent weeks,but officials say that number is decreasing because more civilians are trapped.

Outside this camp families about to escape say they saw other people trying to flee arrested or murdered by IS.

“May God banish them and cure us from this evil.”

The past week has seen some of the most brutal fighting since operations to re-take Iraq from Islamic State militants began in October,and soldiers have been fighting around the edges of Mosul’s Old City for weeks.

Trapping civilians, officials say, is IS’s strategy to slow down the battle with human shields.

“Because so many IS fighters remaining are foreign, the battles are fierce.But our soldiers are accomplishing our mission.”

In areas re-captured by Iraqi forces in the past few days,IS mortars and other weapons left behind indicate when the militants are beaten, they are retreating fast.

Last week, some Iraqi officials said operations would pause as suspected U.S.-led coalition airstrikes on civilian homes were investigated.

But soldiers here say they are not slowing down.And families say the death and destruction in Mosul is so extreme that, more than anything else, they just want it to end.

Reporting from Mosul, Iraq, I’m Heather Murdock, VOA news.