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IRAQ WARS
Families from Iraq's Fallujah flee one hell to find another
By Jean Marc Mojon
Habbaniyah, Iraq (AFP) June 21, 2016


US steps up aid to Iraq refugees
Washington (AFP) June 21, 2016 - The United States on Tuesday assigned another $20 million to help Iraqis displaced by the fight against the Islamic State group.

Citing UN figures, State Department spokesman John Kirby said 85,000 people have fled the city of Fallujah during a month-long offensive by US-backed Iraqi government forces.

"And I would note that more than 3.3 million Iraqis have been internally displaced since 2014. More are expected to flee in the coming days and weeks," Kirby said.

The extra US assistance, part of a larger package to be announced later this year, will be given to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to set up camps to shelter and feed the displaced.

UN urges Iraq, allies to aid civilians who fled Fallujah
United Nations, United States (AFP) June 22, 2016 - The UN Security Council on Tuesday urged the international community to live up to its "moral and political obligation" to aid Iraqi civilians who fled an operation against the Islamic State group in Fallujah.

Council members "welcomed the successful counteroffensive" launched by Iraqi forces and coalition partners on May 22-23 to retake Fallujah, a key jihadist stronghold west of Baghdad that had been besieged for months.

IS has lost 45 percent of the territory it held at the height of its strength, noted French Ambassador Francois Delattre, who holds the rotating council presidency.

But more than 60,000 people have been forced from their homes in the area over the past month, and a sudden influx of civilians pouring out of the city center last week has left the aid community unable to cope.

Thousands of families have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep.

The UN's refugee agency said 20 more camps would be needed in the coming weeks for those displaced, adding that it was "urgently" seeking $17.5 million to meet immediate needs.

Foreign countries supporting Iraq have a "moral and political obligation" to help those in need to ensure that "those who had to flee from the fighting in Fallujah and around Fallujah will not suffer twice," Delattre told reporters.

He added that all parties involved should "respect their obligations regarding international humanitarian law."

"It is crucial that the Iraqi state makes sure that no exaction nor retaliation be committed against civilian population by paramilitary groups," Delattre said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory in Fallujah last week after the national flag was raised above the main government compound.

They fled starvation and jihadist tyranny in Fallujah for the safety of displacement camps but thousands of Iraqi families still have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep.

"The government told us to leave our homes, so we did. The way they described it, we were going to find heaven," said Ayyub Yusef, a 32-year-old from Fallujah.

"I don't regret leaving because we would have died there. Here, we are alive, just about, but it's really just another kind of hell," he said.

Yusef, his wife and two children are among the tens of thousands of Fallujah residents who have fled the government's operation against the Islamic State (IS) group in the city.

More than 60,000 people have been forced from their homes in the area over the past month and a sudden influx of civilians pouring out of the city centre last week has left the aid community unable to cope.

Yusef's family was rejected from several camps that were already full and washed up on the shores of Lake Habbaniyah, where yet another camp was being erected.

He had not been given a tent yet and had been left to sleep outside with his family for four nights.

"My parents finally got a tent in another camp, so we will try to reach them to sleep with them tonight," he said.

As the blistering sun set on the lake, once a coveted holiday spot in Iraq, men swarmed round a truck to collect tent poles and tarpaulins.

"We were expecting some kind of accommodation at least but we were given nothing. Now we have to erect our own tents," said 49-year-old Taresh Farhan, banging on the canvas and poles with his fist to straighten them out.

- No latrines -

One young woman was furious.

"We had to live through the tyranny of Daesh (IS) and now it's just another injustice," she said, declining to give her name.

"Five days here and nothing to eat, not even a bottle of water... This camp is just like the rest of Iraq, if you don't have connections, you will get nothing," she said.

"Shame on them, there is no bathroom for the women... We have to go in the desert," said the woman, her eyes blazing with rage through the slit of her niqab face veil.

At another, rapidly expanding camp in Khaldiyeh further along the shores of Lake Habbaniyah, an NGO called Preemptive Love Coalition delivered basic foods.

For many of the recently displaced Fallujah residents there, it was the first distribution they had seen.

They queued patiently as gusts of warm wind cloaked the camp in orange dust.

"The last days in Fallujah, we were cutting grass in the street to eat it," said Hamde Bedi, a 41-year-old woman pregnant with her eighth child.

Her family had been displaced several times over since the launch of the government's offensive to retake the IS bastion a month ago.

The UN's refugee agency said Tuesday that 20 more camps would be needed for the Fallujah displaced in the coming weeks and added it was "urgently seeking $17.5 million" to meet their most immediate needs.

- 'Catastrophe' -

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory last week after the national flag was raised above the main government compound.

Security forces continue to battle jihadists in northern neighbourhoods of the city but the biggest crisis the government faces now is humanitarian.

"What we're seeing is the consequence of a delayed and heavily underfunded response with an extreme toll on the civilians fleeing from one nightmare and living through another one," the Iraq chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Nasr Muflahi, said on Tuesday.

"Fallujah may have been retaken but its citizens are facing a catastrophe," he said.

Many of the most recently displaced families are without their men, who are often kept for days by the security forces for screening because IS members have been trying to sneak out by blending in with fleeing civilians.

Hamde's husband Yasser was released on Sunday after four days.

"We had managed to flee the Jolan neighbourhood because my wife is in the final stages of pregnancy. We asked Daesh (IS) permission to go to hospital and they agreed," he said.

"When we got out of hospital, we didn't return and we fled. We walked for seven hours. I had to carry my wife across canals. We were also carrying my disabled son," Yasser Abed said.

"We saw families getting blown up by Daesh's roadside bombs ahead of us as we fled. Now we are here, with nothing to eat and no money and we are expecting a baby," he said.

"I hope it's a girl."


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