UNITED NATIONS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 279,000 people are currently displaced as a result of the military operations in Mosul, a city in north Iraq, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here Monday.

More than 220,000 of these are estimated to be displaced from western Mosul since military operations on the western neighborhoods began in late February, Haq said at a daily news briefing here. "Assistance continues to displaced people and to people in newly retaken areas wherever access allows."

Trauma care capacity for patients from western Mosul has been further strengthened with the establishment of two new field hospitals at Adhba and Hamam al Alil, south of Mosul, he said.

"Five trauma stabilisation points and four field hospitals to the south and east of Mosul are now receiving patients from Mosul," he added.

Mosul witnessed a fighting between the Iraqi government forces and Islamic State (IS/Da'esh) terrorists.

The Iraqi government force's advance toward Mosul came after the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Feb. 19 the start of an offensive to drive the extremist militants out of the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of Tigris River which bisects the city.

Late in January, Abadi declared the liberation of the eastern side of Mosul, or the left bank of Tigris, after more than 100 days of fighting against the Islamic State (IS) militants.

However, the western side of Mosul, with its narrow streets and a heavy population of between 750,000 and 800,000, appears to be a bigger challenge to the Iraqi forces, according to the United Nations estimates.

Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.