‘Courageous’ female journalist Shifa Gardi killed in Mosul bomb blast while reporting on fight against ISIS
Journo worked for Kurdish television channel Rudaw who said the blast was caused by an explosive device on a road that also wounded her cameraman
A BOMB blast has killed a female war reporter in Iraq as government forces attempt to wrestle control of Mosul from ISIS militants.
Shifa Gardi had been covering the fight against the barbaric terror group for Kurdish television channel Rudaw.
The broadcaster said: “Prominent Rudaw war reporter and journalist Shifa Gardi has been killed in Mosul as she covered clashes.”
They added: “Journalism remains male-dominated = Shifa Gardi broke those perceptions and stereotypes = we pay tribute to her courageous journalism.”
Her editors said the bomb blast that killed her was caused by an explosive device on a road in western Mosul which also left her cameraman wounded.
He was then transferred to Erbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, where the channel is based.
The Iraqi government’s advance into Mosul's western half was reported to have been slowed down today as they became increasingly bogged down in street to street fighting against ISIS.
Hundreds of civilians poured out of Mosul on foot today but the vast majority of the city’s 750,000 population remain trapped inside where living conditions are said to be getting worse.
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, of Iraqi special forces, said his troops were “moving very slowly” and that ISIS terrorists were responding to their advance with car bombs, snipers and dozens of armed drones.
The hovering machines have caused relatively few deaths but have inflicted dozens of light injuries that have disrupted the pace of ground operations.
Many of those fleeing said they were from villages outside Mosul and had been forced to march to the city more than four months ago to serve as human shields.
Juri Fathi, a mother-of-six who was forced to live in a school for three months, said: “We've been through terrible times. I had to burn my children's clothing just for warmth.”
Fathi held her youngest child — a four month old boy — in her arms as she spoke and said he was born in an abandoned house between her hometown of Hamam al-Alil and Mosul as she was being led on the forced march by barbaric ISIS militants.
She said: “I named him Mussab (meaning ‘difficult’) for these tough days.”
Iraqi forces declared eastern Mosul “fully liberated” in January after officially launching the operation to retake the city in October 2016.
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