But shooting, suicide bombings and mortar attacks still continue.
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During the Fallujah operation, Daesh resorted to hostage taking among the trapped civilians, using them as human shields to slow down army advances.
“People have run and walked for days”. He claimed about 15 percent of them were foreign fighters.
The military announced on Saturday that it is now turning its attention to Mosul, which is the terror group’s de facto capital in Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi declared victory for Iraq’s government troops on June 17 after special forces recaptured most of the city in a battle that has been going on for weeks.
The Refugee Council is one of a number of aid organisations that have sent teams to a temporary camp sheltering the displaced in Amiriyat, 30 kilometres south of Fallujah.
He pointed out that a newly-opened camp in Amriyat al-Fallujah, which houses 1,800 people, has only one toilet for women.
Stephen O’Brien said today that “people escaping Fallujah are in desperate need of assistance” and need urgent help “before this situation becomes a humanitarian catastrophe”. That allowed thousands of civilians who had been used as human shields to flee the city, a key militants stronghold west of Baghdad that had been besieged for months.
Fighting was still underway in parts of the city, where US and Iraqi warplanes targeted snipers and other IS positions, Brig. A bastion of the Sunni insurgency against USA forces following the 2003 invasion, it was seen as a launchpad for bombings in Baghdad.
The authorities have already made arrests related to allegations that Shi’ite militiamen executed dozens of fleeing Sunnis.
And other organisations reportedly say the number might be up to twice that many.
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The militants seized Fallujah in January 2014, six months before they declared a “caliphate” over part of Syria and Iraq. “Pregnant women, children, elderly people and people with disabilities are collapsing of exhaustion with scant medical services and aid available in the camps”, Schembri said. “We don’t want rice or cooking oil, we just want our men”.
