Iraqi forces fighting to retake the city of Mosul from fighters of the Islamic State have been greeted by evidence of mass executions carried out by ISIS in recent days. A group of 50 policemen being held near Mosul were killed on Sunday and the bodies of more than 70 civilians were discovered in a house in a village south of Mosul. Other incidents reported by the United Nations include the village of Safina, 30 miles south of Mosul, where local residents reported that the 15 bodies found floating in the river were killed in order to spread fear. Six others from a tribal foe of ISIS were tied to a vehicle and dragged through the village. Local reports to UN officials tell of many other instances where women and children were brutally slain by ISIS gunmen. The hundreds of thousands of people expected to be displaced by the operation to retake Mosul have not materialized based on the number of requests received by humanitarian aid workers bracing for the onslaught. The peak day so far was Tuesday, when more than 3,300 Iraqis were transported to camps set up to receive displaced citizens according to the displacement and migration minister. The total number of displaced Iraqis stands at 8,940, but officials are still expecting the number to swell to “tens of thousands” as the fighting around Mosul picks up. Since the beginning of 2014, some three million people have been displaced by the violence.