Operation Fallujah: hundreds of civilians flee war-torn Iraqi city

Hundreds of civilians fled the Fallujah area on Friday with the help by the Iraqi forces who are battling to retake the city from Islamic State group, officials said.

However, tens of thousands of civilians remain stranded inside Fallujah with reports that Iraqi militias have warned they will shoot at any homes not displaying white flags, while IS have said they will kill anyone who tries to surrender.

Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues in Fallujah with Iraqi forces making a slow, cautious advance into the city using heavy firepower to blast their way through homes and boobytrapped buildings.

"Our forces evacuated 460 people... most of them women and children," police lieutenant general Raed Shakir Jawdat said.

Most families who have managed to escape "were the displaced from areas around Fallujah... and a few were displaced from inside the city," an official from the Norwegian Refugee Council [NRC] said.

"The situation inside Fallujah is getting critical by the day," said Nasr Muflahi, NRC's Iraq director.

"We are now hearing reports of contaminated water being used for drinking, while entire neighbourhoods are being displaced within the battle zone with no safe way out."

Meanwhile, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shia majority called on Iraqi forces taking part in the offensive launched earlier this week, to protect the civilians trapped inside.

"Saving innocent people from harm's way is the most important thing, even more so than targeting the enemy," Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said during Friday prayers in the holy city of Karbala.


Slow advances towards Fallujah 

On Friday, Iraqi forces and pro-government militias captured the last town in Garma city neighbouring Fallujah, sources told The New Arab.