ISIL STARVING FALLUJAH RESIDENTS
BEIRUT • Iraqi families who managed to flee the besieged city of Fallujah Thursday as fighting intensified have told of the desperate plight of those living under the jihadists.
Waving white flags, a handful of families were picked up by Iraqi troops carrying little food or water after walking for kilometres. Aid agencies said they had reported “extreme hunger and starvation” among the 50,000 civilians trapped in the city, west of Baghdad.
In an update issued Thursday, the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid group working with refugees and internally displaced people in Iraq, said 41 families have fled from the outskirts of Fallujah in the past day, bringing the number of escaped families to 114. It estimated that 50,000 civilians are still trapped inside.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is reported to have lined the main routes out of the city with snipers and booby-trapped the roads with mines since the Iraqi army, backed by U.S. air power, began their offensive to recapture the city four days ago.
A father and his two sons were reported to have died after stepping on an IED while fleeing from al-Hsay on the outskirts of Fallujah on Wednesday.
The NRC, which runs a camp for displaced people 30 kilometres outside Fallujah, released photographs of freed families showing malnourished-looking children in dirty clothes. One woman said she and her family escaped in the middle of the night.
“They took off their slippers to make less noise. They hid in big drainage pipes, before running to the border raising white flags made of cloth.”
Another mother told the NRC there was little left to eat. Aid agencies said they cannot get access to the city, which no longer has electricity or clean water supplies.
Nasr Muflahi, of NRC, said: “The stories coming out of Fallujah are horrifying. People who managed to flee speak of extreme hunger and starvation,” he said.