| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Fallujah residents suffer, in and out of the city |
| 2016-06-08 |
| [RUDAW.NET] For the residents of Fallujah who manage to avoid being used as human shields by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... and escape the widespread starvation in the city, their suffering continues when they reach government-held territory where they face lack of resources and possible abuse at the hands of Shiite militias. An estimated 50,000 civilians remaining in Fallujah face starvation in a city cut off from external aid and controlled by Islamic State (ISIS) ISIS "They told our neighbor they would give him a sack of flour if his son joined them," Hanaa Mahdi Fayadh from northeast Fallujah told Rooters. "He refused and when they had gone, he fled with his family." Escaped residents of the city tell stories of no fuel to make fires and no food to cook on those fires. Some had only stale dates to eat. "The only thing remaining in the few shops open was dates; old, stale dates and even those were expensive," said Fayadh. A 50kg bag of flour cost 500,000 dinars, about $450 US, according to Rooters. ISIS controls the food supplies in the city but many residents had no money to buy food after the Iraqi government stopped paying the salaries of its employees in the city a year ago. The government made the move in an effort to stop any funds from reaching the terrorist group. "There is widespread food deprivation," Lise Grande, deputy special representative of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, told Al Jazeera. "Medicines haven’t made it into Fallujah for months. We know that people no longer have access to clean drinking water and they’re forced to drink out of the irrigation canals. We’re worried that there might even be a cholera outbreak because of this." ISIS also used the starving civilians as human shields. Azhar Nazar Hadi, from the Sijir neighbourhood in northern Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperityor a really nice place to raise your kids... said her family was asked by The For those who manage to escape the city, however, their problems are not over. Those housed in a camp in nearby government-held territory are receiving assistance from a government that has no resources. There are shortages of clean water, food, and medicine in the camp. "So we are suffering here under difficult conditions," Umm Bariq, recently arrived from south of Fallujah, told the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... . "We need help here." |
| Posted by:Fred |