This grandma was trapped in a basement with her chickens

Khatla Ali Abdullah, 90, who recently fled her house in Al Mamoun district speaks with a Reuters journalist as she sits at her tent in Hammam al Alil camp. Photos: Reuters

Ninety-year-old Khatla Ali Abdullah has survived decades of turbulence in northern Iraq, but the frail grandmother who fled the battle for Mosul recently says the fighting there is the worst she has ever seen.

Carried across the desert by her grandsons, under sniper and mortar fire, she was one of thousands who braved the difficult and dangerous journey out of Islamic State's shrinking stronghold in the west of the city.