“A human catastrophe is unfolding in Fallujah”, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
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“Warring parties must guarantee civilians safe exit now, before it’s too late and more lives are lost”, Egeland added. The UN has accused IS of using the civilian population as human shields as it prepares to mount a desperate defence of one of its most emblematic bastions. It said 3,700 people had managed to escape the city in the past week.
Falluja has been under siege for more than six months. Islamic militants were joined by former Iraqi army officers to form IS.
UNICEF estimated that at least 20,000 children remain trapped in the city.
Haider al-Obeidi with the elite counterterrorism troops.
The United States is leading a coalition conducting air strikes in support of the Iraqi government offensive, and says it is having success in rolling back Islamic State both in Iraq and in Syria.
The elite troops repelled a four-hour attack by the Islamic State group in the city’s south a day after first moving into the southern edges of the militant-held city with the help of USA -led coalition airstrikes.
“Every time our forces try to push in, they encounter really tough defence systems set up by Daesh”, said a police colonel, speaking on the outskirts of Fallujah. To communicate with Fallujah’s residents, coalition aircraft dropped leaflets telling those who can not leave the city to affix white sheets on their rooftops to mark their locations, Warren said. The Sunni-led militants still control Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, as well as smaller towns and areas in the west and north.
Gruesome violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since Daesh launched an offensive in the country in June 2014, and took control of portions of the Iraqi territory.
As the offensive on Fallujah began May 23, IS supporters took to social media to reinforce the narrative.
“They came at us heavily armed but did not use auto bombs or suicide bombers”, he said.
The UNHCR said that it had received reports of casualties among civilians in the centre of Fallujah as a result of heavy shelling, including seven members of one family.
The army started the offensive on May 23, with the backing of Shi’ite militias known as Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and air support from the US -led coalition.
Officials in Basra said the southern province had lost 26 fighters from the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force alone.
Falluja has been a bastion of the Sunni insurgency that fought both the United States occupation of Iraq and the Shia-led Baghdad government.
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As summer temperatures spike, Iraqis will once again suffer rolling blackouts that threaten to spark widespread anti-government protests like those that roiled the country previous year.
