31 Egyptians flee Mosul under growing campaign against IS

CAIRO – 4 April 2017: A total of 31 Egyptian expatriates fled Mosul, Iraq on Monday, escaping the ongoing Iraqi military campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group, Egypt’s state-owned news agency

MENA reported

.

Due to confrontations between the Iraqi army and IS militants, the expatriates sent the Egyptian consulate a call for help to get out of the city.

Iraqi security forces sent a convoy to transport the Egyptian expatriates from war stricken areas of Mosul to the Egyptian consulate in Baghdad on March 31.

Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, has been controlled by IS militants since 2014; the militant group committed crimes of killing, slaughtering, raping women and destroying archeological sites. However, Iraqi military forces, backed by the international military coalition, recaptured the eastern parts of the city after a campaign launched in October 2016.

In 2016, the total number of Egyptian expats in Iraq reached 250,000, most of whom work in oil fields and the communication sector, Secretary General of the Union of Egyptians Aboard, Mohamed Rayan, said in September,

according to Al Arab

.

Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were as many as 3 million Egyptian expatriates in Iraq. The number declined to 500,000 during the war, Saudi Arabian newspaper

Al Sharq Al-Awsat reported

in July 2003.