Up to 20,000 civilians are trapped in the last Islamic State group-held areas in Mosul's Old City, which Iraqi forces are battling to retake, a senior UN official said Thursday.

"Our estimate at this stage is that in the final pockets of the Old City, there could be as many as 15,000 civilians, possibly even as high as 20,000," UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Lise Grande told AFP.

Source: AFP