The "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) has begun starving the residents of Mosul to pressure them to join its ranks after losing many of its fighters in battles with Iraqi forces, officials told Diyaruna.

"The residents of Mosul can only obtain one meal a day as result of the starvation campaign ISIL has been conducting in order to coerce them into joining its ranks," said Ninawa provincial council member Abdul Rahman al-Wakaa.

"ISIL recently has lost many elements in the fighting with our forces and its economic resources have been greatly diminished," he told Diyaruna. "It is therefore now seeking, through this barbaric campaign, to make up for its losses."

The group has raised food prices in local markets, he said, with a 50 kilogramme bag of flour now selling for more than 100,000 Iraqi dinars ($85), a bag of rice of the same size for 70,000 dinars ($60) and a 1.5 litre bottle of cooking oil for 10,000 dinars ($9).

"ISIL controls the prices people pay and raises them at its will, while giving foodstuffs to its elements and their families free of charge or at very low prices," he said.

To cope with this pressure, residents are growing vegetables at home, trading food with each other, and selling belongings in order to get money, al-Wakaa said.

"Sometimes they receive small amounts of cash from relatives outside Mosul via secret money transfers away from the terrorists' control," he said.

"I maintain communication with people [in Mosul] and they have made it clear that they would prefer to starve to death than join the terrorists", he added.

Residents resist ISIL tactics

"Mosul's population, for over two years of ISIL occupation of the city, has been facing various forms of intimidation, repression and persecution," said Ninawa provincial council displaced persons committee chairman Ghazwan Hamid.

"The latest such abuse has been the terrorists' use of food as a means of pressure on the people, to make them send their sons, especially young men, to ISIL camps," he told Diyaruna.

The humanitarian situation in Mosul is very difficult due to ISIL's blockade and its treatment of city residents, who are no longer able to buy food due the high costs and rampant unemployment, Hamid said.

"Despite the severe suffering, the people are refusing to volunteer to fight in the ranks of the terrorists, regardless of ISIL's acts of oppression and starvation," he said, adding that they are finding strength in the knowledge that the liberating forces will arrive soon.

ISIL is using starvation as a means of pressuring residents, but it "is still facing great difficulty in forcing the residents to volunteer", said Ninawa-based journalist Mohammed Tariq al-Bayati, who works for al-Ghad Radio.

"There is hardly any response to the pressures, regardless of the terrorists' enticement, crimes and oppression campaigns," he told Diyaruna.

Mosul has been suffering economic paralysis as result of ISIL control, he said, adding that work is scarce, and for those who can find it, the pay is very low.

"I know people there working 10 hours a day and receiving only 1,000 dinars (less than $1) as a daily wage," he said.