Focus on families fleeing Fallujah

When he saw the fighting move into his street on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Fallujah a week ago, Hamadi Jassem, a carpenter, knew it was time to get his family out of town. Jassem bundled his wife, three children, mother, father and brother into an ambulance taking injured people to a hastily set up clinic for those injured in the conflict. There, he paid a taxi to take the family to visit his sister in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. After five days with his sister and 20 other relatives, Jassem heard about a camp nearby being set up for civilians who fled the fighting in Fallujah, a city known for its ties to former President Saddam Hussein about 50 km west of Baghdad. An estimated 100 US soldiers and up to 1,000 Iraqis have died in two weeks of fighting between Coalition forces and anti-Coalition fighters. Now, the family is sitting on the blue tarpaulin floor of an Iraqi Red Crescent tent on a hastily-cleared vacant land in the al-Hadhra district of western Baghdad. Aid agencies such as the Italian Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and the Middle East Church Council are supplying food, water and medical supplies to the families. "The fighting kept getting more and more aggressive. I felt like we were all in danger, so I had to get my family out of there," Jassem told IRIN at the camp. Children cheerfully run around the camp's canvas city, making friends in their new surroundings. But inside many tents, the mood is dark. "I spent my whole life making my house beautiful," Hanaa Rashid al-Jafari, an elementary school teacher bringing tea to Jassem's family, her new neighbours, told IRIN. "What will happen to it in the fighting? I'm very scared." Al-Jafari said it took her family of 10 six hours to get to her parents' house in Baghdad, a trip that usually takes half an hour. It seemed as if everyone was trying to get out of Fallujah the day she left, and US troops were checking every car at several different checkpoints. "We had to leave everything behind," al-Jafari said. "Now we'll run out of money because none of us can work here." Al-Jafari's family can stay at her parents' house, but it was very crowded and the tent option seemed better, she said. Up to 100,000 people may have fled the fighting and be staying with relatives in and around Baghdad, according to some aid agencies. A tentative ceasefire over recent days gave civilians hope that they might be able to go home soon, Jassem explained. On the other side are resistance fighters who say they would die rather than give up their weapons, according to Fallujah residents. US President George Bush said on Sunday that terrorists and foreign fighters in Fallujah would be targeted by US Marines. "I hope today to return to my home. It will be a great joy for me and my family if they settle down this critical situation," Jassem said. "We feel like people in prison, because we can't return to our homes." Although the Red Crescent also hopes the fighting will end in the next few days and families will be home in a week, workers are planning for three months' worth of supplies and logistics for the camp. A building is quickly going up to house portable toilets at the edge of the camp. Plastic tanks to hold water for washing are going up in another corner. Workers expect more displaced people to show up before it's all over. "It's a matter of dignity to people. Joining this camp is degrading to them," Mohammed Ibrahim, deputy director of the Iraqi Red Crescent told IRIN, shaking his head. "But they believe they won't stay for too long." But Jassem feared the fighting in his city would spread to other places in Iraq. He believed the entire country would be more violent in coming weeks. Meanwhile, aid agencies stockpiled medical supplies around the central Shi'ite city of Najaf, in case fighting breaks out there. It follows the announcement by US-led Coalition forces that say they will capture or kill Moqtada Sadr, a firebrand cleric based in Najaf who is wanted for the death of another cleric. Sadr also controls the Mehdi Army, which is believed to have killed some Coalition soldiers. In preparation for any possible future conflict, Iraqis have been donating blood and setting up field clinics near mosques, said Barbara Jones, a spokeswoman for Lifeline, a South African-based NGO working on projects to improve the capacity of the Ministry of Health. Coalition forces do not want to fight in Najaf because of the important religious sites there, said a Coalition official who declined to be named. Troops have taken over the main Sadr Hospital, however, making it impossible for patients to be treated there, which is why the doctors, nurses and patients were asked to move out, Jones said. "I'm really upset about this," she told IRIN. "Patients and doctors were caught in the crossfire then. And now we need two hospitals." The UK-based NGO, Islamic Relief, plans to take hospital equipment to Najaf after getting calls for help from doctors at Sadr Hospital when they were forced out, said Mohammed Makki, acting head of mission for Islamic Relief. The NGO is still deciding what else it can do to help. "They asked if they could have the hospital back, but it seems that's not an option," Makki said. "We should orchestrate the aid so we don't get caught like we did in Fallujah." Setting up three new clinics in Najaf, the number being discussed by aid agencies, is the responsibility of the newly independent Ministry of Health, Makki said. Aid agencies can help, but it will be expensive, Makki explained. Another option is to ask Coalition forces to move out of the hospital, he said. It will cost thousands to equip these clinics, so the NGOs should work together," Makki maintained. "It will cost too much." In addition to this, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has distributed 1.5 mt of medical and surgical supplies to the Najaf health directorate, while intravenous fluids and dressings have been given to the Nasiriyah health department.