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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Aid reaches Fallujah
BAGHDAD, 12 April 2004 (IRIN) - Aid agencies still able to operate in Iraq have managed to deliver supplies to the troubled city of Fallujah, some 50 km northwest of the capital, Baghdad, where the US military launched a campaign to quash resistance fighters last week.
According to international media reports, more than 600 Iraqis, most of them civilians, have been killed, while the US military maintains almost all the casualties were combatants.
The controversial offensive started following the death of four US workers in the city last week. Their bodies were mutilated and hung from a bridge over the Tigris River.
More than a hundred cars packed with families left the city by convoy over the weekend on a back road where there was no US checkpoint, according to Ghassan Elkahlout, programme coordinator at the UK-based Islamic Relief NGO in Baghdad.
Most of the families were staying with relatives in Baghdad. An estimated one third of the population of 200,000 have fled the city, according to local sources.
“When our team went in, they had the problem of evacuating people,” Elkahlout told IRIN. “We took three cars loaded with emergency health kits, food, water and drugs.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has sent more than a ton of medical supplies over the past week to a field hospital set up and run by a Jordanian couple several kilometres outside of the restive Sunni city, said an aid worker who declined to be named. Fallujah is part of the “Sunni triangle,” a region known for its loyalty to former president Saddam Hussein and the epicentre of anti-US resistence.
From the field hospital, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society sent supplies to four clinics around Fallujah, the worker said. The ministry of health, which has just been handed back to Iraqi management, also sent aid, the worker said. According to local newspapers, residents also gave blood at local mosques, which was supplied to the clinics.
The United Nations is working with its partners along with the Iraqi Ministry of health to distribute aid to those affected and is following the situation carefully.
On Sunday, a statement was issued by the UN, with Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealing to all parties "to exercise restraint in order to minimise danger to innocent civilians," following an increasing number of casualties reported among non-combatants.
Other international aid agencies such as Premiere Urgence and Intersos sent supplies too. Elkahlout said he had put out an appeal to the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq to get help from other aid agencies.
“We sent a medical team there - doctors and nurses to help the people,” Elkahlout said. “There is a need for medical equipment and medical staff. They need ambulances to take people from fighting areas to hospitals and clinics. I have a list of medicine requested by the medical staff in Fallujah.”
He said he had written permission on Thursday to rush to deliver humanitarian supplies and tried to deliver everything on Friday morning. Other convoys of goods would be forthcoming, he said.
“We will buy food, medical equipment and drugs for any escalation of the situation,” Elkahlout said. “Other areas might need our help, especially, if there’s no stop to the violence. We have to be prepared for it.”
Coalition forces said the campaign was necessary to get rid of violent insurgents. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters on Saturday that 40 fighters had been killed in a Fallujah mosque during the fighting.
“We are staying within the strict rules of international law. The enemy is not. We are strictly respecting religious sites. The enemy is not,” Kimmitt said. “The Geneva Conventions state that when the enemy uses a mosque or any other religious site, a church, a synagogue, or whatever, it loses its protected status.”
Meanwhile, Fallujah residents who fled to Baghdad started shooting in the air around lunch time Sunday as rumour spread that a ceasefire agreement had been reached in the city.
Their elation, however, was short-lived, as families now living in the al-Ameriyah shelter in west Baghdad bombed during the 1991 Gulf War gathered to discuss whether it was safe to go home or not. A ceasefire due to end Monday morning seemed to be still in place, the international media reported.
“Somebody told us the Americans were withdrawing from Fallujah. We’d like to have a complete withdrawal,” Mohammed Hadi Najem, 36, a captain in the former Iraqi Army, who brought his six family members from Fallujah, told IRIN. “We’d just like to have security.” Najem brought his six family members from Fallujah to the al Ameriyah shelter during a lull in the fighting Friday, he said.
According to the Islamic Relief worker, at least 350 families, or more than 1,000 people, were staying with relatives or kind-hearted neighbours in one part of Baghdad. Another estimated 100 families were in another part of town, he said.
At least 20 aid vehicles with logos of the Iraqi Red Crescent, the Islamic Red Cross, on the side, were seen on back roads heading towards Fallujah over the weekend. At least one convoy of more than four cars was escorted by a US forces Humvee.
Along with official aid agency help, Iraqis on the back roads to Fallujah handed out glasses of water to people in cars, an Arab tradition of hospitality. Families brought blankets and bags of food to mosques in the area.
“Some of the people here are relatives, but we just agree to help because it’s our duty,” Ahmed Thaib, 26, a volunteer from the Amariyah neighbourhood where many people are staying, told IRIN. “We agree to take them in if they need us.”
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Human Rights, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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