Fallujah – Approximately 10,000 people have fled escalating violence in the Iraqi region of Anbar in the past ten days, according to a report issued by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
Representatives from UNICEF and other international organizations, including the World Food Program (WFP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Health Organization (WHO), travelled to a series of camps established to receive people seeking safety and service. The UNICEF report said that an estimated 50,000 people remained trapped in the city as the military offensive continued. Residents in Fallujah have been living with extreme levels of violence, with acute shortages of food and medicine.
According to the report, the Government of Iraq had established a number of camps for the 60,000 people already displaced in Anbar, and in anticipation of movement from the Fallujah area. The U.N. expects the conflict to further escalate and with that more people to be displaced.
The report said that as a result of escalating violence in the past two years, more than 3.4 million people were now displaced all over Iraq, more than half are children. UNICEF and its partners reiterated the need for urgent additional funding as more than 10 million people need lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
