UN: thousands of Iraqi civilians flee Fallujah amid clashes
Thousands of civilians are fleeing Fallujah after the city was declared liberated from the Islamic State group, the United Nations said, while an Iraqi commander reported fierce clashes as elite counterterrorism forces pushed to clear out the remaining militants. IS fighters launched missiles, detonated a suicide car bomb and deployed snipers against Iraqi forces, Brig. […]Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for AP:
Thousands of civilians are fleeing Fallujah after the city was declared liberated from the Islamic State group, the United Nations said, while an Iraqi commander reported fierce clashes as elite counterterrorism forces pushed to clear out the remaining militants.
IS fighters launched missiles, detonated a suicide car bomb and deployed snipers against Iraqi forces, Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obeidi said. “Iraqi forces are still advancing despite the strong clashes,” he said.
Over the past three days, the U.N. says that nearly ten thousand families have fled Fallujah amid the heavy fighting. More than 80,000 civilians have fled Fallujah and its surrounding areas since the operation to retake the city from IS was announced last month, according to the U.N.
“Agencies are scrambling to respond to the rapidly evolving situation and we are bracing ourselves for another large exodus in the next few days as we estimate that thousands more people remain trapped in Fallujah,” said Bruno Geddo, the representative for the U.N.’s refugee agency in Iraq, in a statement Sunday.
