Iraqi officials have been working to provide an accurate assessment of the number of civilian casualties resulting from the nine-month offensive to liberate Mosul from the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS).

The Ministry of Defence is in the process of gathering data in order to release an official figure of the overall losses, said ministry media director Brig. Gen. Tahseen al-Khafaji.

"We are working with the Ministry of Health and relevant government bodies as well as the Ninawa local authority within the framework of joint partnership committees in order to come up with an accurate figure," he told Diyaruna.

"We currently do not have any initial figures or estimates," he said. "We are waiting for these committees to complete their work so as to come up with a figure for the losses."

The survey will include losses among civilians and military personnel, as well as ISIS casualties.

"This figure will be final and official and will be revealed to the world and be noted in the historical record," al-Khafaji said.

Refuting ISIS rumours

Some reports have put the civilian toll at 40,000 -- a figure the ministry has dismissed as being too high.

"This figure is wildly inaccurate," al-Khafaji said, noting that ISIS has been spreading false rumours to undermine the victory of the Iraqi forces.

"We were keen to protect civilians from the enemy as much as possible," he said. "We effectively co-ordinated with international coalition forces and their airstrikes were accurately targeted."

In an effort to prevent civilian casualties, he said, all military advances were accompanied by messages delivered via mobile radio stations, sound amplifiers and leaflets dropped from aircraft to guide civilians toward safe corridors.

Civil defence teams in western Mosul are continuing to retrieve bodies from under the rubble in the Old City, Lt. Col. Rabih Ibrahim who is in charge of the civil defence teams told Diyaruna.

"We have retrieved bodies, and our sources point to other locations where bodies are buried under the rubble, but we do not yet know how many," he said.

The teams submit a daily report to the Civil Defence Directorate in Baghdad.

"After we complete our tasks, the directorate will be responsible for revealing the final figures," Ibrahim said.

The figures cited by certain media outlets are "inaccurate and exaggerated", he added, stressing that "we are on the ground and know the facts".

He placed the blame for all casualties squarely on ISIS, saying the group randomly bombed residential areas and used car bombs and heavy artillery in old alleyways, as well as using residents as human shields.

Preserving civilian lives

ISIS committed untold crimes in Ninawa during its occupation of Mosul, provincial council member Hassan Shabib al-Sabaawi told Diyaruna.

"There is hardly an area in Ninawa that has not been affected by the barbaric group during its control of the area," he said.

During the battle to liberate Mosul, ISIS fighters used civilians as human shields, he said, by taking them hostage in an attempt to protect themselves.

"There has been significant human loss at the hands of terrorists, and it could have been worse, were it not for the high professionalism of our forces and their focus on human life above everything else," he said.

The focus on preserving civilian lives is what delayed the victory for as long as it did, he added.