Rights group, tribes urge Iraqi forces to save 'starving' Falluja

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Source: Reuters

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday called on Iraqi forces besieging the Islamic State-held Falluja to allow aid to reach tens of thousands of residents facing acute shortages of food and medicine.

The Iraqi army, police and Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militias - backed by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition - have maintained a near total siege on Falluja, located 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, since late last year.

Desperate residents are making soup from grass and using flour from ground date seeds to make bread, New York-based HRW said in a report. Food, when available, costs up to 50 times the normal price.

"The people of Falluja are besieged by the government, trapped by (Islamic State), and are starving," said Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director. "The warring parties should make sure that aid reaches the civilian population."

Read more: http://news.trust.org/item/20160407101945-ne8zv/?source=reTheWire

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Residents of the besieged city of Fallujah are starving. Iraqi government forces should urgently allow aid to enter the city, and the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which captured the city in early 2014, should allow civilians to leave.

“The people of Fallujah are besieged by the government, trapped by ISIS, and are starving,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “The warring parties should make sure that aid reaches the civilian population.”

Since government forces recaptured nearby Ramadi, the capital of Anbar governorate, in late December 2015, and the al-Jazira desert area north of Fallujah in March 2016, they have cut off supply routes into the city, three Iraqi officials said. Tens of thousands of civilians from an original population of more than 300,000 remain inside the city.

Human Rights Watch has not had access to Fallujah, and it is very difficult to get information from the remaining residents because ISIS prohibits the use of mobile phones and the Internet. Residents sometimes manage to catch a cell tower signal at night and are able to respond to some messages, including several that Human Rights Watch relayed via rights activists in Baghdad. Human Rights Watch was recently able to speak with one person in Fallujah and to seven others from the area who are in contact with people there.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/07/iraq-fallujah-siege-starving-population