Mosul fighting forces 5,640 Iraqis to flee their homes - IOM

GENEVA (Reuters) - The fighting around the Iraqi city of Mosul has forced 5,640 people to flee their homes in the last three days, the International Organization for Migration said on Thursday, most of them in the last 24 hours. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said people were also fleeing to the east from the west of the city after heavy air strikes and shelling in the west. Nine hundred families from Mosul district, or about 5,400 people, had been taken to a reception centre in the village of Al-Hood in Qayyarah, UNHCR said. Another 240 people from Hamdaniyah district, east of Mosul, had been transferred to the Debaga reception centre, it said. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Louise Ireland)