Baghdad hospital treating injured from Fallujah

Carrying a white flag when trying to escape from their house in the military district of Fallujah, 50 km northwest of Baghdad, Naser and his family of three were all shot at by snipers they say, but managed to make it to Numan hospital in the capital. Naser and his relatives declined to give their last names for fear of being questioned or arrested by US soldiers. His mother, 50, has a bullet wound in her lower back and a hand injury. His sister, 22, has a fractured foot. The baby was also grazed by a bullet, said Ali Abdul Khalik, a junior doctor at Numan hospital, run by the Qatar Joint Committee for Relief in the Adamiyah, in the south of Baghdad. The family ran out of their house on Saturday evening after the roof was hit, possibly by a mortar, Naser said. It was not clear who carried out the shooting. US troops last week launched a military campaign against insurgents in the city, in which more than 600 people have been killed according to international media reports. A ceasefire was in place as of Sunday and there has been sporadic shooting since. "Everyone got shot, even the ones who were holding a white flag," Naser told IRIN in Baghdad, shaking his head. "We called an ambulance, and the ambulance driver was also shot." His sister was bitter about the escape. "We were like mice scurrying around from place to place," she said, with tears in her eyes. "How could we be fighting the Americans? We were hiding in our house. This little boy has no sin - how can he be attacked?" At the hospital, about 15 casualties from the Fallujah fighting have been brought in daily, Dr Khalik told IRIN. A US spokesman has said more than 500 people have been killed, many in Fallujah, which is in the restive Sunni Muslim area of the country known as being loyal to former president Saddam Hussein. People who fled the city for Baghdad believe the number is much higher at up to 700 dead, and rising to 1,500 injured around the country. No other hospital in the capital appeared to have patients injured from Fallujah, however. Relatives of patients at Numan hospital said three "field hospitals" around Fallujah were filled with injured civilians and combatants. A US military spokesman on Tuesday referred civilian injury calls to an Iraqi Ministry of Interior number that went unanswered. "We stabilise the patients here, then send them to other hospitals," Khalik explained. He suggested that hospitals may not want to draw attention to themselves by talking about possible injured combatants. Meanwhile, the UN has delivered more than a ton of medical assistance to areas around Fallujah. Over the past three days, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has handed over some 3,500 blankets, 1,200 mattresses, five emergency health kits (benefitting over 50,000 people), 500 stoves and 500 plastic sheets to cater for displaced people from Fallujah in Baghdad. The goods are being delivered by NGOs partners such as Intersos, Première Urgence and Islamic Relief among others.