Bahrain Mirror- Reuters: A full siege is developing in Mosul as poor families struggle to feed themselves after prices rose sharply following the US-backed offensive on the Islamic State-held city in northern Iraq, humanitarian workers said on Tuesday.

Some of the poorest families are finding it hard to feed themselves while others are hoarding and hiding food as they expect prices to rise further as the battle that started six weeks ago takes hold of the city.

"Key informants are telling us that poor families are struggling to put sufficient food on their tables," UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, told Reuters.

"This is very worrying."

Iraqi government and Kurdish forces surround the city from the north, east and south, while Popular Mobilisation forces -a coalition of Iranian-backed Shi'ite groups - are trying to close in from the west.

Retail prices rose sharply last week, after Popular Mobilisation fighters cut the supply route to Mosul from the Syrian half of the self-styled caliphate, declared by Islamic State two years ago over Sunni-populated parts of Iraq and Syria.

More than a million people are still believed to live in parts of Mosul under the control of the Islamic State fighters, who seized the largest city in northern Iraq as part of a lightning advance across a third of the country in 2014.

With the last supply route cut off, basic commodity prices in Mosul could double "in the short term", said a humanitarian worker, who declined to be identified.

Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi'ite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul that began on October 17, with air and ground support from a US-led international military coalition.

The capture of Mosul, Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq, is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate.

An air strike targeting Islamic State fighters hit a clinic south of Mosul on October 18, killing at least eight civilians, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

Iraqi and coalition forces did not confirm the report, which said two militants and the Sunni hardline group's transport minister were also killed in the strike.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to be somewhere near the Syrian border, has told his fighters there can be no retreat from the city.

Some 74,000 civilians have fled Mosul so far, and the United Nations is preparing for a worst-case scenario that foresees more than a million people made homeless as winter descends and food shortages set in.

Arabic Version