ERBIL, Sha'ban 24, 1437, May 31, 2016, SPA -- The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) is working on contingency plans that up to 700,000 people could be displaced by a planned offensive to retake Iraq's second largest city from IS, according to its head in Iraq. Iraqi forces, with help from a U.S.-led coalition, are expected to push later this year to retake Mosul, IS's de facto capital in Iraq. WFP's country director in Iraq, Jane Pearce, said she feared the violence ahead but remained confident the agency was as well-prepared as possible for the event. "I'm fearful for what the people may suffer and for what destruction may be levelled against a really beautiful city that has been a centre of culture and learning for centuries," Pearce told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "I feel confident that the organisation will do its best to make sure that the people get the assistance that they need," she said in an interview in Erbil, capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, where many aid operations are coordinated. WFP helps some 1.5 million people across Iraq with food, vouchers or money - most of them the casualties of conflict inside Iraq and war in neighbouring Syria. Last Friday, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said more than 4,200 Iraqis from Mosul had fled to Syria in May, adding that it was gearing up for up to 50,000 people to leave the city and cross the border. -- SPA 21:47 LOCAL TIME 18:47 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w