Geneva: Daesh forces are reported to be holding several hundred families as “human shields” in the Iraqi city of Fallujah while government forces close in, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday, citing witness accounts.
Some 3,700 people have fled Fallujah, west of Baghdad, over the past week since the Iraqi army began its offensive on the city controlled by militant forces, it said.
“UNHCR has received reports of casualties among civilians in the city centre of Fallujah due to heavy shelling, including seven members of one family on the 28th of May (Saturday),” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told a news briefing.
“There are also reports of several hundred families being used as human shields by Daesh in the centre of Fallujah.” The accounts come from displaced people who have spoken to UNHCR field staff, spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said.
“Most people able to get out come from the outskirts of Fallujah. For some time militants have been controlling movements, we know civilians have been prevented from fleeing. There are also reports from people who left in recent days that they are being required to move with Daesh within Fallujah,” she told Reuters.
Daesh militants fought back vigorously overnight and parried an onslaught by the Iraqi army on a southern district of Fallujah, officers said.
Iraqi authorities are holding some 500 men and boys under the age of 12 for “security screening” as they leave the city, a clearance process that can take up to seven days, Spindler said.
“But people are being released after this process, and we understand that 27 men were released yesterday (Monday) after being screened,” he said.
Two Yazidi women were rescued from Daesh captivity in Falluja by Iraqi forces during the offensive, a representative of the minority said on Tuesday.
Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament, thanked the army for rescuing the two women on Monday in a post on her official Twitter account. “My prayers for saving the rest,” she wrote.
More than 5,000 Yazidis, mostly women and children, were captured and enslaved by the militants when they overran the Sinjar area in northwestern Iraq in the summer of 2014, purging the minority they consider to be devil worshippers.
The Norwegian Refugee Council warned on Tuesday that the siege of Fallujah and the 50,000 civilians believed trapped inside it is a catastrophe in the making.
Its secretary-general Jan Egeland renewed a call for safe corridors to be opened to prevent massive civilian loss of life.
“A human catastrophe is unfolding in Fallujah. Families are caught in the crossfire with no safe way out,” he said in a statement.
“For nine days we have heard of only one single family managing to escape from inside the town. Warring parties must guarantee civilians safe exit now, before it’s too late and more lives are lost,” he said.
With elite Iraqi forces now attempting to push towards the city centre, the fighting is expected to intensify.
“There isn’t enough safe drinking water and the situation will quickly worsen with summer around the corner, and temperatures likely to hit over 50 degrees Celsius,” he said.
