Displaced families return to devastated Talafar

Nearly 1,500 displaced Iraqi families have returned to the northern city of Talafar after Coalition forces ended an operation to rout insurgents hiding there, but the returnees said dozens of their homes had been totally destroyed. The Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said on Tuesday that despite the returns, thousands of displaced people were still living in camps surviving on aid from various humanitarian organisations. One of the main IRCS camps near the city, which is located just 60 km from the Syrian border, was half-empty. The camp, with 750 tents, housed 3,000 families at the height of the recent fighting. "We don't have full information on what returnees are finding there [in Talafar]. Our efforts are now to address the difficulties of those still displaced in camps and villages around Talafar," Ferdous al-Abadi, spokesperson for the IRCS, said. Some residents complained that some operations were still ongoing – making the city insecure. "My husband was killed inside Talafar a week ago. Today I went to check our house and see if everything was still there. I cannot stay there and [so I] returned to this camp because at least there is security here," said Samira Muhammad, 42, a tearful mother of four. The fighting has also disrupted the school year, which has now been delayed across the city. Checkpoints remain and returning residents were subjected to heavy security checks. Up to 5,000 families fled their homes in Talafar when fighting between Coalition forces and insurgents started earlier this month. "We are talking 20-25,000 people," Jette Soerensen, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva (ICRC), told IRIN on Saturday. The displaced families took refuge in surrounding towns and villages – some with friends or relatives. Others, however, were living in abandoned villages or small camps, with no access to such basic items as food, water or bedding, the IRCS said. On Tuesday, the IRCS said some 2,000 displaced families are still living with relatives in the city of Mosul, some 400 km from the capital, Baghdad. In the area of Ayadhyia, a village 10 km north of Talafar, some 350 are camped while another 450 families are in the village of Sheikh Ibrahim. IRCS said Shi’ites from Talafar had chosen a temporary camp in the city of Kerbala, some 184 km from the capital. Various agencies and NGOs including the United Nations children’s fund, World Health Organization, the ICRC, Emirates and Turkish Red Crescent Societies have been distributing blankets, food parcels, medicines and other essential needs to the displaced people. Since the fighting started, no humanitarian organisations have been authorised to enter the city. The IRCS said it had now been allowed to send its disaster team to Talafar on 23 September to make a detailed study of the situation. "They have been delaying our entrance inside Talafar to prevent [us from seeing] the reality and destruction that the city has suffered during this fighting, even the death toll has not been reported yet," al-Abadi added. The ICRC called for more assistance to humanitarian organisations assisting the displaced families. It urged those involved in the fighting "to respect the basic rules of international humanitarian law that are applicable in Iraq". Up to 3,800 United States forces and 5,000 Iraqi troops took part in the operation in which 153 terrorists have been killed and 187 captured, US officials said, denying there were civilian casualties. However, Surkassi Ahmed, a doctor at the local hospital, said there had been civilian casualties. "We have received cases of deaths of women, children and the elderly in our hospital," he noted.