Fire at Iraq sulphur plant put out

Qayyarah : The smoke from fires lit by Islamic State jihadists to provide cover from air strikes has painted the northern Iraqi sky black, providing a dramatic backdrop for the Mosul offensive.

The use of smoke in warfare is likely as old as war itself but the masks and technology available to Iraqi forces in this conflict leave civilians, especially children, the most vulnerable.

As forces closed in on their Mosul bastion, IS set fire to oil wells, torched tyres inside the city and set up a defence system around it that includes burning oil trenches to blind their enemy's air and satellite assets.

In the area of Al-Tina, south of Mosul, billows of white smoke from a sulphur plant torched by IS were brought rolling in by the wind, mixed at times with black plumes from blazing oil wells.

In the resulting haze, which limited vision to a few hundred metres (yards), dust-caked children played on the roadside.

"It blocks our chest," said Tiba, an 11-year-old girl wearing a blue dress and red headscarf. Anas, a seven-year-old boy with curly brown hair, said his throat was hurting.

According to a UN statement, 600 to 800 people have sought medical assistance because of the toxic cloud released by the sulphur plant fire.

Most of them were checked at a health centre in nearby Qayyarah but its chief doctor said several cases had to be transferred to a better equipped hospital nearby.