Food poisoning outbreak in Iraq leaves 2 dead and hundreds ill

Contaminated food has killed at least two people and made around 750 others sick at a camp for Iraqi civilians who have fled fighting against Islamic State in Mosul, UN agencies have said.

A fleet of ambulances and buses raced overnight to the Hasansham U2 camp, home to more than 6,000 people. They took more than 200 of the most severely ill to hospitals in the regional capital, Erbil, and other big cities. About 600 others were treated at the camp, which houses people who left their homes to escape the battle against Isis for control of the city of Mosul, the extremists' last major Iraqi stronghold.

A woman and a child died overnight, Iraqi doctors told the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Television images showed listless children and adults hooked up to IV drips for severe dehydration, some apparently doubled over in pain from stomach cramps.

They all fell ill after eating an evening meal from a local restaurant, supplied to break the daytime fast observed by Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan. It was paid for by a Qatari charity and included chicken, beans, rice, yoghurt and soup, local officials said. Iraqi police are investigating the incident.