Dec 20, 2017 - Thousands more civilians were killed in Mosul battle than offic.. 20. Dezember 2017 - Tausende Zivilisten wurden in der Schlacht um Mosul getötet, mehr als offiziell... Dec 20, 2017 - En la batalla de Mosul murieron miles de civiles más que ofici... Dec 20, 2017 - Des milliers de civils ont été tués lors de la bataille de Mossoul, plus ... 20 dic. 2017 - Nella battaglia di Mosul sono stati uccisi migliaia di civili in più rispetto agli uffic... 2017年12月20日 - モスルの戦闘で数千人以上の市民が犠牲になった。 2017년 12월 20일 - 모술 전투에서 군인보다 민간인 수천 명이 더 많이 사망했습니다. Dec 20, 2017 - Mūšyje Mosule žuvo tūkstančiais daugiau civilių nei pareigūnų. 20 grudnia 2017 r. - Tysiące więcej cywilów zginęło w bitwie o Mosul niż... Dez 20, 2017 - Milhares de civis foram mortos na batalha de Mossul, mais do que a oficial... Dec 20, 2017 - В боях за Мосул погибло на тысячи мирных жителей больше, чем офиц... 20 Aralık 2017 - Musul savaşında resmi görevlilerden binlerce daha fazla sivil öldürüldü 2017 年 12 月 20 日 - 摩苏尔战役中的平民死亡人数比官方统计的死亡人数还要多数千人。 2017 年 12 月 20 日 - 摩蘇爾戰役中的平民死亡人數比官方統計的還要多數千人。

Thousands more civilians were killed in Mosul battle than official tally, AP finds. Des milliers de civils de plus ont été tués dans la bataille de Mossoul que le décompte officiel, selon AP.

Judy Woodruff:

The fight against is in Iraq was a years-long, brutal campaign. La lutte contre l'Irak a été une campagne brutale qui a duré des années.

Now the toll taken by its most important battle is coming into detailed and horrific relief. Maintenant, le bilan de sa bataille la plus importante est mis en relief de manière détaillée et horrible.

Hari Sreenivasan has that from New York. Hari Sreenivasan:

The battle for Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, began in October of last year.

This past July, the militants were finally routed, but at a devastating cost. En juillet dernier, les militants ont finalement été mis en déroute, mais à un coût dévastateur. Great swathes of the city lay in ruins, and thousands died, civilians, soldiers, and ISIS fighters.

At that time, special correspondent Marcia Biggs was there for us, witnessing the grim search for the dead. À cette époque, l'envoyée spéciale Marcia Biggs était là pour nous, témoin de la sombre recherche des morts.

Here’s a short excerpt of a report she filed. Voici un court extrait d'un rapport qu'elle a déposé. Marcia Biggs:

This is what so-called liberated Mosul looks and sounds like, in a small pocket of the Old City, the war against ISIS seemingly ongoing. Voilà à quoi ressemble Mossoul soi-disant libérée, dans une petite poche de la vieille ville, la guerre contre l'Etat islamique apparemment en cours. And this is the Old City from ground level, a scene of utter devastation, entire neighborhoods flattened by coalition airstrikes, leaving the few survivors to search for the remains of their loved ones. Et voici la vieille ville vue du sol, une scène de dévastation totale, des quartiers entiers rasés par les frappes aériennes de la coalition, laissant les quelques survivants à la recherche des restes de leurs proches.

Bashar and Ali’s families were together in this house hit by an airstrike 28 days ago. Ali names the dead one by one. Ali (through interpreter):

My mother, three brothers, three sisters, my father, two sisters-in-law, two nieces. Marcia Biggs:

And you’re the only one left from your family. Ali (through interpreter):

Yes. Marcia Biggs:

Shu Bedak Tamel, what are you going to do now? Ali (through interpreter):

What can I do? I just want to take the bodies out and bury them. Hari Sreenivasan:

That grim task of counting and burying the dead is now several months old. Cette sombre tâche de compter et d'enterrer les morts date maintenant de plusieurs mois. And the numbers of civilian dead is shocking.

A new report from the Associated Press puts that toll, right now, between 9,000 and 11,000 killed in Mosul. The AP says roughly one-third were killed by the U.S.-led coalition or Iraqi forces. That’s much higher than the coalition’s official figure of 326 civilian deaths.

For more on the AP’s report, I’m joined now by one of its authors, Susannah George.

Thanks for being with us.

First, let’s start with that number. How do we get such a big discrepancy? Comment obtient-on un si grand écart ? How did you go about counting it? Comment avez-vous procédé pour le compter ? Susannah George:

We spoke to half-a-dozen morgue and Ministry of Health officials in Mosul.

We crossed-referenced a number of different databases that were kept by independent organizations and nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations, Amnesty International. Nous avons croisé un certain nombre de bases de données différentes qui étaient conservées par des organisations indépendantes et des organisations non gouvernementales, les Nations Unies, Amnesty International.

And we pulled all these different lists together that we were able to get, lists of names of the dead, or death tolls from the morgue. Et nous avons rassemblé toutes ces différentes listes que nous avons pu obtenir, des listes de noms de morts ou des taux de décès à la morgue. Some were handwritten on pieces of paper. And we cross-referenced them and were able to come up with that range, from 9,000 to 11,000 civilians killed during the battle to retake Mosul. Et nous les avons croisés et avons pu trouver cette fourchette, de 9 000 à 11 000 civils tués pendant la bataille pour reprendre Mossoul.

That’s from October of 2016 until July of 2017, when the city was declared liberated. Hari Sreenivasan:

So, when these people at the morgue write down the name of a dead body, what do they say is the cause of death? Alors, quand ces gens à la morgue écrivent le nom d'un cadavre, qu'est-ce qu'ils disent être la cause du décès ? And how do we figure out whether they were killed by ISIS or whether they were killed by airstrikes? Et comment savoir s'ils ont été tués par l'EI ou s'ils ont été tués par des frappes aériennes ? Susannah George:

Well, that’s something we had to rely on the morgue officials' knowledge of the cause of death for the civilians who — the bodies that they brought into their office. Eh bien, c'est quelque chose que nous avons dû compter sur la connaissance des responsables de la morgue de la cause de la mort des civils qui - les corps qu'ils ont amenés dans leur bureau. They have a small office in Eastern Mosul where they work out of. Ils ont un petit bureau dans l'est de Mossoul où ils travaillent.

And they said that they made a judgment call for cause of death as the bodies came in. Et ils ont dit qu'ils avaient rendu un jugement sur la cause du décès lorsque les corps sont arrivés. And the ones that they logged as killed by artillery or airstrikes, they were able to determine that by talking to family members who brought the dead into their office, and also by examining the body. Et ceux qu'ils ont consignés comme tués par l'artillerie ou les frappes aériennes, ils ont pu le déterminer en parlant aux membres de la famille qui ont amené les morts dans leur bureau, et aussi en examinant le corps.

Many of the bodies, they said, as the battle moved towards Western Mosul, the vast majority of the bodies that they were receiving at that time, they described as — the cause of death as simply that they were crushed from either an airstrike artillery or an I.S. car bomb or explosive caused the building to collapse on top of the civilians. une voiture piégée ou un explosif a fait s'effondrer le bâtiment sur les civils. Hari Sreenivasan:

Give us context of what was happening in March in that last surge. Donnez-nous le contexte de ce qui s'est passé en mars lors de cette dernière vague. Was there an opportunity for coalition forces to recognize that there were going to be an increased number of civilian casualties? Susannah George:

Well, what we saw there at the end of February and early March was something that we’d seen happen a few other times in the Mosul operation, was, as Iraqi forces were looking to speed up the progress on the ground to retake the city, there was a spike in civilian casualties.

And most people know about it because of the March 17 coalition airstrike that resulted in more than 100 civilians dead. That’s according to a Pentagon investigation into the incident.

And when reports of that incident began to surface in late March, the entire Mosul operation was put on hold for a few weeks. Et lorsque des informations sur cet incident ont commencé à faire surface fin mars, toute l'opération de Mossoul a été suspendue pendant quelques semaines. And coalition officials told us at that time that — and a diplomat who was present during those meetings told us at that time that they were looking to completely change the way that they were fighting the battle, because the cost on civilian lives was too great.

However, when we spoke to Iraqi officers on the ground who were actually leading the fight, they told us that they didn’t receive any lasting change in guidelines of how to call in airstrikes or how to carry out the fight on the ground from their perspective. Cependant, lorsque nous avons parlé à des officiers irakiens sur le terrain qui menaient réellement le combat, ils nous ont dit qu'ils n'avaient reçu aucun changement durable dans les directives sur la façon d'appeler les frappes aériennes ou de mener le combat sur le terrain depuis leur perspective. Hari Sreenivasan:

A few months ago, we saw in Marcia’s story people going out and burying the dead. And, in your story, you actually — you show individuals that are going back and exhuming the bodies of their loved ones.

What are they doing? Describe that. Susannah George:

Those were heart-wrenching scenes that we saw at the graveyards that are scattered around Western Mosul. Ce sont des scènes déchirantes que nous avons vues dans les cimetières disséminés dans l'ouest de Mossoul.

Families had to exhume the bodies of their loved ones in order to get a Ministry of Health death certificate. Les familles ont dû exhumer les corps de leurs proches afin d'obtenir un certificat de décès du ministère de la Santé. That’s a piece of paper that would entitle them to benefits from the state if their loved one was a member of the police or of the Iraqi security forces. C'est un bout de papier qui leur donnerait droit à des prestations de l'État si leur proche était membre de la police ou des forces de sécurité irakiennes.

And the families we spoke to in those graveyards said it was like reliving the tragedy of losing that loved one all over again, having to pull their body up from under the ground and having a Ministry of Health or morgue official examine it to corroborate what they believe was the cause of death for their loved one. Et les familles à qui nous avons parlé dans ces cimetières ont dit que c'était comme revivre la tragédie de perdre à nouveau cet être cher, de devoir retirer son corps de sous terre et de le faire examiner par un responsable du ministère de la Santé ou de la morgue pour corroborer ce qu'ils croire que c'était la cause du décès de leur être cher. Hari Sreenivasan:

One of the things you point out in your reporting is that this was not anywhere close to a comprehensive number, that there are still mass graves where people have not been identified, not to mention entire cities like Raqqa, where it could be worse. L'une des choses que vous soulignez dans votre reportage est que ce chiffre est loin d'être un chiffre complet, qu'il existe encore des fosses communes où des personnes n'ont pas été identifiées, sans parler de villes entières comme Raqqa, où cela pourrait être pire. Susannah George:

Yes, there’s thousands of people who are believed to be in these mass graves that are dotted around Mosul, the largest of which is just south of Mosul’s Western half, Hasfa. Oui, on pense qu'il y a des milliers de personnes dans ces fosses communes qui parsèment Mossoul, dont la plus grande se trouve juste au sud de la moitié ouest de Mossoul, Hasfa.

And it also — our toll also doesn’t include the people who died who were not from Mosul. I.S., as the caliphate, the physical caliphate collapsed, I.S. herded thousands of civilians with them into Mosul from neighboring provinces. ont parqué avec eux des milliers de civils à Mossoul en provenance des provinces voisines.

If there was a civilian who was from a neighboring province, not from Nineveh province, which is where Mosul is located, their death wouldn’t have been recorded in the morgue and Ministry of Health documents that we examined as part of this investigation. S'il y avait eu un civil originaire d'une province voisine, et non de la province de Ninive, où se trouve Mossoul, sa mort n'aurait pas été enregistrée dans la morgue et les documents du ministère de la Santé que nous avons examinés dans le cadre de cette enquête.

So, this is very much a minimum. That range of 9,000 to 11,000 is, we believe, a minimum. There’s still hundreds of people who are still believed to be buried under the rubble of the Old City that endured some of the greatest destruction in the fight to retake the city. Il y a encore des centaines de personnes qui sont encore censées être enterrées sous les décombres de la vieille ville qui a subi certaines des plus grandes destructions dans la lutte pour reprendre la ville. Hari Sreenivasan:

All right, Susannah George of the Associated Press, thanks so much. Susannah George:

Thank you.