Focus on situation in Fallujah

It was 1 a.m. when the bomb came through the roof that left Muhaye Ahmed, 17, with shrapnel in her legs. Her cousin was more unlucky - her foot was so injured that it had to be amputated. She declined to give her name. Ahmed and her cousin are two of the estimated 24 people injured, along with 13 killed, in Naimiyah on 24 April, many of them women and children. The farming village is on the outskirts of Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, where fighting between US Marines and Iraq insurgents has left more than 100 Marines dead in the last three weeks, along with 250 to 700 or more Iraqis killed. "We escaped from the bombing of Fallujah for Naimiyah where there was a normal life for 20 days," Ahmed said. "There was no fighting there. Our family was all kids and women." It's unclear from looking at the house that was bombed whether fighters were staying there or not. Simple beds were left behind on the floors, while bits of blood and what neighbours say is human flesh are burned onto a wall. Parts of the bomb remain, along with holes in the roof and walls of the building. A small boy with a bandaged stomach is among several injured people staying in the house next door. They say no guns were found, but that US troops took eight injured people to a Coalition hospital. Their claims could not be independently verified by a Coalition spokesman. US Marine Capt Tim Bairstow, staying at a house less than a mile away from where the bombing happened, said terrorists attacked Coalition forces on the night of the bombing. But he added that the Marines would send a medical team to the neighbours to see if they needed any more help and a lawyer to discuss compensation. They're also giving the group bottled water, he said. The Iraqi Red Crescent had planned to set up a temporary camp in Naimiyah for people fleeing the fighting in Fallujah, said Mohammed Ibrahim, deputy director for an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Red Crescent tents are still standing in a nearby field. The Red Crescent decided to move its camp to the al-Haddrah district of Baghdad after the bombing, Ibrahim said. An estimated 85 families were still in the camp on Sunday afternoon, according to Ahmed al-Rawi, a Red Cross spokesman. Local hospitals are still dealing with casualties. A baby with shrapnel wounds to his legs is crying in his mother's arms. In beds nearby at the Jordanian Field Hospital on the outskirts of the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah, a man hooked up to an intravenous drip stares into space. In another room, a woman who has had her foot amputated confers with her sister, a frown on her face. At the field hospital, made up of pre-fabricated interlocking trailers, 70 people have been treated for combat-related injuries in the last three weeks, Dr Ahmed al-Zawahra, the hospital administrator, told IRIN in Fallujah. Seven of the patients died. Another two dead bodies brought to the hospital were buried in temporary graves until their relatives could be found, he said. "Most of the injuries were from bullets or from shrapnel from bombs dropped from the air," Zawahra explained. Fighting between US Marines and Iraqi insurgents has raged in the city since 5 April, following the killing of four American contractors. Their dead bodies were mutilated and hung from a bridge over the Tigris River. Foreign journalists have been hard pressed to find out how many people have been injured or killed in the conflict because of the danger associated with moving about in areas where many foreigners have been kidnapped in recent weeks. The highest US combat losses in Iraq since the invasion last March were seen in the month of April with 129 killed, according to international media reports. The Iraqi Ministry of Health has said about 250 people were killed, while local hospitals have put tallies at around 700 people. Up-to-date numbers of Iraqis injured or killed during the fighting were not immediately available from a US military spokeswoman on Sunday. A medical clinic set up in an office building in downtown Fallujah recorded 219 people killed and another 471 injured, said Dr Rafa al-Kubaisi, the hospital administrator. Statistics from other clinics that are just now being compiled show that more than 780 people were killed and 2,900 injured in the fighting, al-Kubaisi added. "It's difficult to know the exact number because during the crisis some families buried people in their gardens," al-Kubaisi, told IRIN. "We didn't give any death certificates out until now, so later we will know the exact figure." In addition, many injured people may not have been able to get treatment, or may have gone to Baghdad hospitals, doctors say. For example, visits to the Jordanian Field Hospital dropped by almost two-thirds in the last three weeks. Before fighting started, doctors and nurses saw about 1,200 people per day, many of them coming to pick up medicine or have their children checked for illness. In the last three weeks, only 500 people per day came, Zawahra said. "Now the city is open, so we'll probably see more people," Zawahra said. A third of the city has reportedly left Fallujah to flee the fighting. US troops stationed at a main road entrance to Fallujah saw 1,300 people returning to their homes by mid-day, said Sgt. First Class Stephan Stankavage of the US military police. "People are happy. It's the first time we have seen them joke and laugh," Stankavage told IRIN. "We're stepping further back and will let Iraqis rule their own. That's the way it should be." Meanwhile, some aid agencies are continuing to deliver supplies to Fallujah. The ICRC transported one and a half mt of medical supplies to the temporary clinics before the conflict heated up, Ahmed al-Rawi, a Baghdad spokesman, told IRIN. Patients were kept from Fallujah's general hospital during fighting because of a checkpoint on a bridge next to the hospital, al-Rawi said. "At the beginning of the escalation of violence, ICRC called on the warring parties to give access to civilians and even insurgents to get to the hospital," al-Rawi said. "Access to the hospital was blocked [so] four field hospitals were established and our help was directed to those four field hospitals." Other aid agencies such as the UN and NGO have also been delivering supplies.