Karl Schembri at the Khazair checkpoint. Photo: Hedinn Halldorsson/ Save the Children

Stepping outside a motel into temperatures of 40˚C, a 12-year-old boy looked resigned as he faced the dusty streets of Erbil that would be his ‘home’ for the unforeseeable future.

He is one of some 500,000 people forced to flee the Iraqi city of Mosul after Islamist militants took control in deadly clashes that caught authorities off guard.

“Sufian and his family could no longer afford to stay at the motel, even though the owner was offering lower rates,” Karl Schembri, Middle East regional media manager for the NGO Save the Children, said when contacted.

Our biggest concern is that the most vulnerable are unreachable

“They were clearly distressed, especially the mother, while the father was worried he was not being a good dad.

“It was heartbreaking,” added Mr Schembri, who had worked as a journalist in Malta.

The boy told Mr Schembri how the previous year he had stayed in the same motel as a tourist.

This time, rather than enjoying a fun holiday, he had fled there bringing nothing but the clothes on his back.

Mr Schembri, who has been in Dohuk, the Kurdistan region in Iraq for the past 10 days, said the sheer number of displaced people in such a short time was unprecedented in recent history.

“The figure of half a million displaced people may be conservative and we estimate there could be around 200,000 more still caught up in disputed areas,” he said.

These could be anyone from elderly relatives left behind due to mobility problems to others who were not granted safe passage.

“Our biggest concern is that the most vulnerable are unreachable and aid should be allowed in.”

The stories reaching NGOs on the ground are scenes of dead bodies on the street, innocent people caught in crossfire, explosions rocking the streets and charred cars as Isis – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, that grew out of an al-Qaeda-linked organisation – take over.

NGOs are doing all they can in the testing conditions, with resources already stretched by the conflict in Syria, to set up camps with special spaces where traumatised children have access to counsellors, experts and teachers to give them a sense of normality.

Save the Children is planning to reach 60,000 beneficiaries with its emergency aid.

As an immediate emergency priority, it is distributing water, food and hygiene kits to those fleeing Mosul, in coordination with local authorities and organisations responding to the crisis.

Mosul is the main city of northern Iraq and a major political and economic centre, with a population of 1.8 million. It is also a gateway to Syria and Turkey.

“The situation is unsustainable, and the longer people stay, the bigger the public health risk.

“Some are so desperate they’d rather return to die back home than on the streets.”

People can help by donating to www.savethechildren.org.uk.