ITV News in Mosul: Families flee Islamic State-held Iraqi city as final battle approaches

• Video report by ITV News Senior International Correspondent John Irvine

As the battle for Mosul between so-called Islamic State (IS) fighters and Iraqi forces reaches its climax, the only people surrendering are civilians.

Iraqi soldiers have now surrounded Mosul, occupied by IS since June 2014, blocking the remaining escape routes out of the city.

Troops are pushing through a retreating tide of people from Mosul, once the Middle Eastern nation's second largest city - it's population now shrinking by thousands a day.

Any means of transport - even wheelbarrows - are being used to ship desperate families out of the city.

Thousands of fleeing citizens is not what liberation was supposed to look like.

The horrendous level of destruction all around the city, however, is testament to how ferocious the battle for it has been - and how much citizens have had to endure.

Escapees may have survived two years under so-called Islamic State, but surviving the conquest of the caliphate means fleeing when they can.

"It has been a nightmare life," one man, fleeing Mosul, told ITV News.

Blood of Iraqi soldiers has been shed even today as the battle for the city intensifies.

Bulldozers are now being used to barricade roads to prevent suicide car bombers. The sniping and exchanges of gunfire are constant, however.

All escape routes from the city have now been cut off, meaning IS soldiers have only one way out - a fight to the death.

An enemy only too willing to meet its ultimate end has made the battle, which has raged since October last year, particularly gruesome for Iraqi forces.

Periodically wounded soldiers are ferried back from the frontline to hospitals.

One general described what is on show as a demonstration of the "brutality" of IS and their "crimes against humanity".

Before this battle began, the advice for civilians was to stay put. While a few are hanging on, many can stand it no longer - so they are leaving home.

In this battle, it is only the civilians who are surrendering.