- (IPS) - At least 800 civilians have been killed during
the U.S. military siege of Fallujah, a Red Cross official estimates.
-
- Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of U.S.
military
reprisal, a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS
that "at least 800 civilians" have been killed in Fallujah so
far.
-
- His estimate is based on reports from Red Crescent aid
workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the
city and from refugees, he said.
-
- "Several of our Red Cross workers have just returned
from Fallujah since the Americans won't let them into the city," he
said. "And they said the people they are tending to in the refugee
camps set up in the desert outside the city are telling horrible stories
of suffering and death inside Fallujah."
-
- The official said that both Red Cross and Iraqi Red
Crescent
relief teams had asked the U.S. military in Fallujah to take in medical
supplies to people trapped in the city, but their repeated requests had
been turned down.
-
- A convoy of relief supplies from both relief
organisations
continues to wait on the outskirts of the city for military permission
to enter. They have appealed to the United Nations to intervene on their
behalf.
-
- "The Americans close their ears, and that is
it,"
the Red Cross official said. "They won't even let us take supplies
into Fallujah General Hospital."
-
- The official estimated that at least 50,000 residents
remain trapped within the city. They were too poor to leave, lacked friends
or family outside the city and therefore had nowhere to go, or they simply
had not had enough time to escape before the siege began, he said.
-
- Aid workers in his organisation have reported that houses
of civilians in Kharma, a small city near Fallujah, had been bombed by
U.S. warplanes. In one instance a family of five was killed just two days
ago, they reported.
-
- "I don't know why the American leaders did not
approach
the Red Cross and ask us to deal with the families properly before the
attacking began," said a Red Cross aid worker, who also spoke on
condition
of anonymity.
-
- "Suddenly they attacked and people were stuck with
no help, no medicine, no food, no supplies," he said. "So those
who could, ran for the desert while the rest were trapped in the
city."
-
- If the U.S. forces would call a temporary cease-fire
"we could get our trucks in and get the civilians left in Fallujah
who need medical care, we could get them out," he said.
-
- Mosques have organised massive collections of food and
relief supplies for Fallujah residents as they did last April when the
city was under attack, but these supplies have not been allowed into the
city either.
-
- The Red Cross official said they had received several
reports from refugees that the military had dropped cluster bombs in
Fallujah,
and used a phosphorous weapon that caused severe burns.
-
- The U.S. military claims to have killed 1,200
"insurgents"
in Fallujah. Abdel Khader Janabi, a resistance leader from the city has
said that only about 100 among them were fighters.
-
- "Both of them are lying," the Red Cross
official
said. "While they agree on the 1,200 number, they are both lying about
the number of dead fighters." He added that "our estimate of
800 civilians is likely to be too low."
-
- The situation within Fallujah is grim, he said. If help
does not reach people soon, "the children who are trapped will most
likely die."
-
- He said the Ministry of Health in the U.S.-backed interim
Iraqi government had stopped supplying hospitals and clinics in Fallujah
two months before the current siege.
-
- "The hospitals do not even have aspirin," he
said. "This shows, in my opinion, that they've had a plan to attack
for a long time and were trying to weaken the people."
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