Mosul residents targeted by indiscriminate "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) sniper fire and shelling tell Diyaruna they have been forced in some cases to bury their dead in their own gardens.

The sight of gravestones in the gardens of private homes has become commonplace in and around Mosul, they said, given the difficulty of transporting the bodies to designated cemeteries under the current circumstances.

As it is gradually forced out of the city, ISIL has been targeting liberated areas on Mosul's left bank with mortar and sniper fire in retaliation, residents said, killing dozens of civilians and damaging homes and property.

The group recently launched several mortar attacks from al-Falah neighbourhood that targeted liberated areas in eastern Mosul "without regard for the lives of civilians", al-Falah resident Salem al-Hamdani told Diyaruna.

Before ISIL fled al-Falah, only recently recaptured by Iraqi forces, the group was using it as a launch pad for many of its mortar attacks on the nearby liberated neighbourhood of Jamaa, he said.

"They have destroyed neighbourhoods and killed people. They have committed massacres against innocent people," al-Hamdani said.

In eastern Mosul's al-Noor neighbourhood, the Hammadi family was burying their son Iyad, who was killed by mortar fire earlier, in the garden of their home when another ISIL mortar shell struck a nearby house, the family said, adding that a number of their neighbours sustained serious injuries, some requiring amputations, in the incident.

"The family cemetery is located in an area controlled by ISIL and is not reachable at the moment," Iyad's brother, Adel, told Diyaruna.

"Moving and transferring bodies is currently nearly impossible, which is what forced us to bury [my brother] in the home garden," he said.

ISIL hides behind civilians

ISIL "has made civilians in the liberated areas the target of its shells and sniper fire, without taking into account the presence of children, women and the elderly", said Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obeidi, deputy commander of the Counter-Terrorism Service's 1st special operations unit.

The group has been launching rocket attacks from the roofs of civilian houses, using residents as human shields against the Iraqi forces, he told Diyaruna.

"ISIL knows very well that Iraqi aircraft and artillery will not respond to [their fire], fearing for the lives of civilians," he said.

ISIL mortar attacks prompted some civilians to flee towards displacement camps or to neighbourhoods outside the line of fire, al-Obeidi said.

In one day alone, al-Khazir camp east of Mosul received more than 500 civilians who fled Mosul's al-Intissar, al-Noor and Aden to escape ISIL's indiscriminate shelling, said Razkar Obeid, the official in charge of the camp.

"The displaced spoke of heavy bombardment by ISIL," he told Diyaruna. "They fled for fear of death."

Al-Khazir camp administration sheltered them in tents and provided them with blankets, mattresses, food and space heaters, he said.

Iraqi MP for Ninawa Intissar Ali called on the security forces to provide more protection for civilians in the liberated areas and to speed up the operation to wrest the remaining areas of Mosul from ISIL's grip.

"ISIL has committed heinous crimes against citizens and their property, with mortar attacks causing the killing and wounding of many residents in the city as well as the demolition of entire homes," she told Diyaruna.

Opening safe corridors for civilians living in flashpoint areas would limit losses and secure the lives of people there, she said.