UN gives $15m for Fallujah aid as people dying of hunger

[Anthea]

As offensive against ISIS continues, 150,000 people from besieged city may soon be in need of urgent humanitarian aid

About 2,300 families have fled the Iraqi city of Fallujah over the past 24 hours, according to an international aid group, as government forces and their allies push forward with an offensive to retake the city from the Islamic State.

The Iraqi army said on Saturday it had gained control of Fallujah's main hospital, a day after recapturing the government compound in the centre of the city.

Fighters belonging to ISIS, still hold roughly 20 percent of the city and are entrenched on its northern districts.

Humanitarian agencies working on the outskirts of Fallujah, located 50km west of the capital Baghdad, said they were struggling to cope with the heavy flow of displaced civilians fleeing the violence as the offensive continues, pressing on towards ISIL-held Mosul .

"In the last 24 hours, more than 2,300 families have actually managed to leave Fallujah, and to be honest, there's very little space for them in Amariyat al-Fallujah, Habbaniyah Tourit City and Khaldiyah, which is where they are escaping to," Nasr Muflahi, Iraq country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Erbil, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.

More than 20,000 people have fled Fallujah in the past two days alone, according to the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR).

"We are now finding it difficult to cope with the numbers that are coming out of Fallujah, especially in terms of delivering safe drinking water. We're down to the bare minimum of three litres per person, and we're not really sure how long we can continue to do that," said Muflahi.

The UN and the Iraqi government have set up camps for 60,000 displaced civilians in Anbar province, but have warned there is little capacity to absorb any more people.

New arrivals, many of whom have been trapped by fighting for weeks, reach relative safety to find overcrowded camps and settlements.

"The people coming out of Fallujah are telling us horrific stories of how they were treated - the lack of food, no services, no electricity," said Muflahi.

"We are doing our utmost, with other agencies, to respond to their needs, which is shelter, water and food," said Muflahi.

"These are things that we need to prioritise, and we need to now rather than later."

Some 70,000 people are estimated to have fled Fallujah, and another 60,000 are expected to leave over the next several days, according to the UNHCR . The agency estimates that up to 150,000 displaced people may soon be in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

"Thousands of families may also remain trapped in Fallujah," Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said on Saturday.

"These are estimates ... however, we remain very concerned about the safety and the wellbeing of the people still in Fallujah."

Rising cases of abuse

Rights groups have voiced concern over reports of abuse, mistreatment and extrajudicial killings. And Sunni politicians have called on Iraqi Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister, to investigate the rising number of alleged abuses.

Iraqi security forces fear that ISIS fighters may be hiding among the displaced.

Shia units known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces fighting alongside government troops have been separating males from their families, detaining the men to put them through a security screening process.

"The process may take a few days, it may take a few months," said Muflahi. We can't confirm any extrajudicial killings."

The government lost control of Fallujah in 2014, months before ISIL took Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and swept across large parts of the country.

As a result of escalating violence over the past two years, more than 3.4 million people are now displaced across Iraq - more than half of them children.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/a ... 48939.html

[Anthea]

UN releases $15m for Fallujah aid amid drastic underfunding

The United Nations has reached into its emergency fund to release $15 million for humanitarian aid for people fleeing fighting in Fallujah, it was announced on Monday.

UN releases $15m for Fallujah aid amid drastic underfunding

Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s humanitarian chief, announced the organization was dipping into its Central Emergency Response Fund “to provide urgent life-saving assistance for people affected by the recent fighting and military operations in Fallujah,” reads a statement issued by his office.

“Since last month, more than 85,000 people have been forced to flee the city, displacing families from their homes, communities and livelihoods,” the statement continues. “Those remaining in the city face dire shortages of food, medicine, electricity and safe drinking water.”

The announcement comes one day after the same body, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reported that the emergency relief fund to provide aid to vulnerable Iraqis has not received two-thirds of its needed funding and projects have had to close.

“To date, only 33 per cent or $285 million has been received,” reported OCHA on Sunday. “With only a third of the appeal funded, projects have already started to close.”

“In the past month, more than 30 front-line health programmes have closed due to lack of funding. Tens of life-saving operations will close in the next weeks if funding is not urgently mobilized.”

The OCHA noted that the funds appealed for do not include what will be needed to deal with new humanitarian needs that will arise, including possible mass displacement from Mosul once an offensive on the city itself is launched.

In releasing the emergency funds today, the UN warned that contingency supplies are nearly depleted and urged donors to act quickly to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.

The UN estimates that 10 million Iraqis are in need of assistance, including 3.3 million internally displaced (IDPs). The majority of the Iraqi displaced have found temporary refuge in the Kurdistan Region, which has seen a 30% increase in its population because of the influx of people fleeing conflict and war in Iraq and Syria.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/200620161

[Anthea]

As was the case in Kobane and most other cities that have been 'liberated' from ISIS

World governments are always willing to spend vast amounts of money to destroy but NEVER want to spend money to rebuild that which they helped destroy