December 27, 2025 09:31 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
CBI moves Supreme Court challenging Kuldeep Sengar's relief in Unnao rape case | Music under attack: Islamist mob attacks James concert with bricks, stones in Bangladesh, dozens hurt | Christmas vandalism sparks mass arrests in Raipur; Assam acts too with crackdown on 'religious intolerance' | BJP's VV Rajesh becomes Thiruvananthapuram Mayor after party topples Left's 45-year-rule in city corporation | ‘I can’t bear the pain’: Indian-origin father of three dies after 8-hour hospital wait in Canada hospital | Janhvi Kapoor, Kajal Aggarwal, Jaya Prada slam brutal lynching in Bangladesh, call out ‘selective outrage’ | Tarique Rahman returns to Bangladesh after 17 years | Shocking killing inside AMU campus: teacher shot dead during evening walk | Horror on Karnataka highway: sleeper bus bursts into flames after truck crash, 9 killed | PM Modi attends Christmas service at Delhi church, sends message of love and compassion

Thousands of desperate civilians on the run as battle for Fallujah continues – UN

| | Jun 01, 2016, at 03:10 pm
New York, June 1 (Just Earth News): Nearly 3,700 people, or 624 families, have fled Fallujah over the past week amid a new offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the besieged city from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh), the United Nations said today, with humanitarian officials also reporting that those civilians left behind risk being used as ‘human shields’ by the terrorists.

According to figures provided by authorities, about 1,300 of them are staying in the al-Iraq camp in the Ameriyat al-Falluja district, where the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is working to provide assistance.

Others are scattered in one of several other Government-run camps in the district or staying with relatives.

“Iraqi forces are helping to transport families escaping the city, and have set up a hotline to provide information to people wanting to leave,” said UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler.

UNHCR has received reports of casualties among civilians in the Falluja city centre due to heavy shelling, including seven members of one family on 28 May.

He also noted that 500 men and boys over 12-years-old are held for security screening, which can take five to seven days, and some 27 men were released yesterday.

Meanwhile, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the country reported on Tuesday that around 50,000 civilians trapped inside the Iraqi city of Fallujah, risk being turned into “human shields” by the terrorist group Da’esh, according to Lise Grande told UN Radio that the UN and other agencies were doing all they can to protect them.

Photo: UNHCR/Anmar Qusay

Source: www.justearthnews.com

 

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.