When he saw Iraqi forces approaching Mosul from afar, Abu Fahad yanked the white headscarf off his father's head, turned it into makeshift flag and decided to sneak out.

The Iraqi managed to herd around 40 members of his extended family out of the neighbourhood of Samah "by advancing quietly, hiding under stairs, sidling along walls".

On Saturday, he and his relatives were receiving assistance at a camp in Khazir, a Kurdish-controlled area further east, where displaced civilians are arriving in growing numbers.

Most are from Mosul's outskirts, but Abu Fahad and a few others were able to find a gap in the tight seal the Islamic State group had imposed on the city.

Two weeks after Iraq launched its largest military operation in years to retake Mosul, the last major Iraqi hub in the jihadists' shrinking "caliphate", forces reached the edge of the city.

Now the million-plus people believed to be trapped inside have to survive fire from both sides to flee the brutality of the jihadists who have ruled them for more than two years.

Abu Sara fled the same neighbourhood, dodging gunfire, bombs, mortar rounds and strikes from the US-led coalition, such was his desperation to leave what many civilians who escaped IS rule describe as an open-air prison.

"There were snipers shooting, mortars crashing down, it was hell," said the 34-year-old, wearing a brown fake leather jacket.

"We walked several miles, taking with us only the clothes we were wearing and white flags we waved the entire way."

Sitting next to him and stroking her belly, his pregnant cousin Umm Mustafa said she could hardly believe she had finally escaped her life spent "hiding under niqab" face veils.

- 'Coming back to life' -

Despite the cold filling the tent that is their new home in Khazir, she was all smiles and wore a teal-coloured dress with matching scarf.

"We're coming back to life," said Umm Mustafa, keeping a watchful eye on some of her seven children as they played in the gravel at her feet.

Abu Ahmed also said that "life had stopped" for many of the million-plus people who remained in Mosul after IS proclaimed its "caliphate" in June 2014.

"All the factories stopped working, there was no work and no money," said the 60-year-old man, who worked in the oil sector before the jihadists took over.

Sitting next to water taps at the intersection of four of the camp's alleys, Abu Ahmed said he hadn't initially planned to flee Mosul and his neighbourhood of Al-Khadra.

He recounted the night that he and his wife were having dinner at their children's place in the Samah neighbourhood.

"We stayed in their home because the bombing was just too intense to go out, but then we escaped and I found myself here," he said. "We left everything behind, we have only God."

Abu Fahad, his wife and six children also fled with none of their belongings but they are safe, unlike some of their relatives who remained trapped in Mosul.

"I still have two sisters in the Al-Karama neighbourhood... and I have absolutely no news," she said.

Al-Karama is one of the first districts that the elite Counter-Terrorism Service entered on Friday.

The force's commanders said they encountered fierce resistance there and intense fighting was still ongoing on Saturday.

"There's no phone network there, the only place where you might get a signal is on roofs but there are snipers up there," said Abu Fahad.

He said he had heard from neighbours who escaped after him that five residents of the area were killed trying to flee.

Bomb kills 12 Iraq civilians fleeing Hawijah: officials
Kirkuk, Iraq (AFP) Nov 4, 2016 - A bomb blast on Friday killed 12 civilians, among them women and children, who had fled the jihadist-held Hawijah area in northern Iraq, officials said.

The deaths highlight the extreme danger faced by civilians trying to flee areas held by the Islamic State group, who may be targeted by the jihadists as they seek to escape and then have to navigate bombs the militants have planted.

Hawijah is a town in Iraq's Kirkuk province that was seized by IS along with swathes of other territory in the summer of 2014.

Police Colonel Fatah Hassan said the displaced Iraqis had left the Hawijah area on foot but were picked up by police who were transporting them to the west when the bomb ripped through the vehicle.

Hassan, a police lieutenant colonel and Iraqi lawmaker Mohammed Tamim all confirmed that 12 displaced Iraqis were killed.

Hassan said one of the policemen trying to help them was also killed, while both police and displaced civilians were wounded.

An image obtained from police of the aftermath of the blast showed a pile of ashes along with one badly burned body in the back of the twisted remains of a white pickup truck.

The charred remains of a woman and at least one other victim lie on the dirt road behind the truck.

The lieutenant colonel said that the truck had apparently run over a bomb, an account that was initially confirmed by Hassan as well.

But Hassan later said that the blast appeared to have originated inside the vehicle, and may have been caused by explosives potentially placed by IS inside bags the women were carrying.

Lamia Haji Bashar, one of two Yazidi activists who won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize, previously lost an eye and suffered burns to her face when one of her friends stepped on a bomb while they were fleeing Hawijah.

Bashar and Nadia Murad, the other activist, were both enslaved and raped by IS which has carried out a campaign of massacres and kidnappings targeting members of the Yazidi minority.

Farther west, Iraqi forces are fighting to retake the IS-held city of Mosul, where a million-plus civilians still live.

Fighting has been limited to the city's outskirts for now, but aid workers fear that the battle may result in mass displacement of civilians as it progresses.

Those fleeing Mosul will also be exposed to bombs planted by IS, as well as the extreme danger of being caught up in the fighting between security forces and jihadists.