(MENAFN) Water supplies to about 650,000 residents of the Iraqi city of Mosul have been cut off after a pipeline was hit during fighting between the army and Islamic State militants, a local official said on Tuesday.
In detail, "The maintenance team cannot reach the pipeline because it lies in an area being fought over," Hussam al-Abar, a member of Mosul's Nineveh provincial council, told Reuters in one of the 15 districts and suburbs of the city where running water ceased.
The news is a blow to authorities hoping that residents will stay in Mosul while US-backed troops try to crush Islamic State in northern Iraq's largest city, which the militants seized in 2014.
"There is a big shortage of drinking water," Abar said. "We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe."
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