An Australian aid worker helping people who have fled Islamic State-controlled villages in northern Iraq fears many aren't finding adequate food, water and shelter in refugee camps in the region.
Hamish Tacey has painted a dire picture of conditions faced by hundreds of people who have abandoned villages on the outskirts of Mosul as government and Kurdish forces edge closer towards the city in a bid to reclaim IS's final stronghold in the country.
The 29-year-old Oxfam protection co-ordinator from Brisbane has been working near the front lines providing drinking water, blankets and hygiene products to Iraqis and helping them reach safety for the past few weeks.
Many have spent eight hours walking through the desert only to arrive at refugee camps that Mr Tacey says are struggling to provide clean drinking water, toilet facilities, showers, and adequate food.
Some are malnourished and have health problems as a result of living under IS control for the past two years.
Mr Tacey says those medical problems are being exacerbated by outbreaks of diarrhoea due to a lack of clean drinking water in the camps.
He said the Iraqi government was supposed to have set up 13 camps well before launching the campaign to retake Mosul but only a few had been built.
"These people have nothing on them and their needs aren't being met in the camps," Mr Tacey told AAP from Erbil, about 80km east of Mosul.
"People are dying. We see it every day.
"We are expecting a huge influx of people from Mosul now so it could turn into a huge catastrophe."
The United Nations estimates 3.3 million Iraqis are already displaced, about 10 per cent of the population.
Up to one million more could be forced from their homes as a result of the campaign to recapture Mosul but the existing refugee camps are designed to cater for about 60,000.
Mr Tacey fears that people fleeing Mosul could be caught in the crossfire between IS fighters and government forces.
Many are likely to be women and children who are vulnerable and needing protection because their husbands and sons are either dead or missing.
"We were in the field on Thursday and a woman told us of how she had run out of her house with just the clothes on her back and her kids without any concept of where to go or what to do because their place was being bombed," Mr Tacey said.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has opened five refugee camps in Iraq to cater for 45,000 people. A total of 11 are planned, with a capacity for 120,000.
"UNHCR and partners are ready to establish more camps quickly, but have been constrained by a lack of access to safe and suitable land from the Iraqi authorities and private landowners," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters overnight.
Mr Tacey said Oxfam needed $8 million to help expand its aid effort in Iraq.
