Children also pay a heavy price for war in Fallujah

By Samir Haddad, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, November 12 (IslamOnline.net) – The US massive offensive on the Fallujah has resulted in an increasingly severe humanitarian disaster in the city, as the Red Crescent said four days of random shelling has turned the city into a “big disaster”.

Local inhabitants complained about the stench of dead bodies laid on the streets or beneath the rubble of houses, hanging in the air, as a result of fierce US air raids.

Medical teams, meanwhile, claimed they were targeted by US soldiers, making it impossible for them to ferry or treat wounded civilians.

“The US occupation forces have been targeting my ambulance, opening fire towards the vehicle deliberately,” Hassan Al-Ali told IslamOnline.net over the phone.

Al-Ali said he survived the assault “miraculously”.

Ali had to replace the ambulance with a small truck to rush the injured to some doctors’ houses instead of the city's hospital, which was bombed by the American forces.

“They are enemies of humanity. I can judge by their targeting of medical staffs and ambulance vehicles.”

10,000 US marines and army forces, alongside some 2,000 Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long anticipated expected onslaught on the city on Monday, November 8.

The onslaught has paralyzed the city of 300,000-people. There has been no water or electricity for days and food shops have been closed.

Many buildings in Fallujah have been completely destroyed, with TV footage showing some districts all but leveled during the offensive.

Massive Grave

Iraqis are increasingly resentful of US occupation practices

A few hours before the massive onslaught, US forces seized the Fallujah hospital and barred doctors from doing their job.

“US occupation forces stormed the hospital I was working for in Fallujah, detaining and opening fire on medical teams,” said a doctor, who only identified himself as Rafae.

“I had to hide my profession to avoid being killed or detained,” he said.

“I opened up a house clinic but I have not enough medicine or antiseptics to make first aid,” he added.

Ali Abbas, a doctor besieged by US forces in Fallujah, said in a desperate appeal to Al-Jazeera Satellite TV that the city has turned into a “massive grave”.

“Dead bodies are everywhere, and we could not evacuate them. No water, no electricity. We appeal to the world to help us,” Abbas cried in the appeal, carried by Al-Jazeera.

“Anyone who gets injured is likely to die because there's no medicine and they can't get to doctors,” said Abdul-Hameed Salim, a volunteer with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society.

“There are snipers everywhere. Go outside and you’re going to get shot.”

Littered Bodies

Doctor Mohamed Sedki told IOL that a medical clinic equipped with necessary medical requirements was made to replace the Fallujah public hospital destroyed by the US shelling.

“But US occupation forces opened fire on the clinic on November 9, leaving a number of doctors killed,” he complained.

An eyewitness said streets were littered with dead bodies, as “snipers are roaming everywhere to shoot whatever targets including children.”

A ten-year-old boy was riddled with bullets in the offensive. However, nobody dared risk their life to evacuate his body, said the eyewitness.

Rejected

Red Crescent trucks, wrapped with white flags, carrying supplies for Fallujah evacuees

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has already warned that fighting in Fallujah threatens a humanitarian disaster in the city over shortage of medical care, food supplies and clean water.

“We've asked for permission from the Americans to go into the city and help the people there but we haven't heard anything back from them,” Firdaws Al-Ibadi, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society member, told Reuters.

“There's no medicine, no water, no electricity. They need our help.”

Citing examples of the humanitarian disaster in the city, she added that a pregnant woman and her child died in a refugee camp in western Fallujah after the mother unexpectedly miscarried with no doctors on hand to help.

In another case, she said, a young boy died from a snake bite that would normally have been easily treatable.

“From a humanitarian point of view, it’s a disaster, there’s no other way to describe it. And if we don’t do something about it soon, it’s going to spread to other cities,” she said.

“We know of at least 157 families inside Fallujah who need our help,” Al-Ibadi added.

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has teams of doctors and relief experts ready to go in to each of Fallujah districts with essential aid, but US military rejected their entry.

Torn Apart

Fallujah residents are torn apart either between venturing out of their homes, where they risk US strikes, or stay indoors facing the specter of death out of hunger.

“With the big number of my family members and poor financial conditions, I had had to stay in Fallujah. Now, I could not go anywhere,” Walid Rashid, a Fallujah resident.

“We had no water or electricity since the offensive began. I do not know what I will do if my food supplies run out,” he said in grief.

The International Committee for the Red Cross says there are thousands of elderly and women and children who have had no food or water for days.

About 80-to-90 percent of Fallujah's 300,000-strong population are said to have evacuated the city, escaping the hell of continuous US air raids that destroyed hundreds of homes and killed hundreds of people, mostly women and children, according to local and hospital sources.

Currently, around 50,000 Iraqi civilians are still trapped in the city.