Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers west of Baghdad in Anbar, has its citizens subjected to horrific crimes with the Iraqi armed forces on one hand and ISIS-imposed barricade on the other.
The city’s inhumane barricade has led to a serious lack of sustenance and medical supplements. Fallujah is short to being besieged by death.

Tarq al-Hashimi, former Iraqi Vice President, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Fallujah citizens are facing mass genocide, “civilians besieged in Fallujah are subject to premeditated murder, whether by airstrikes, hunger or disease. Many women and children have already died”.

Al-Hashimi warned that what is happening could potentially complicate the mission of the U.S.-led coalition to extinguish ISIS.

On his behalf, official Brig. Gen. of Fallujah, Sa’dun Obeid al-Sha’lan said that “Fallujah is besieged by two factors, an external one represented by the Iraqi armed forces, and an internal one by ISIS militants,” confirming that ISIS militants are not allowing any Fallujah citizen in or out of the city.

ISIS extremists are using the civilians as human shields, and are not permitting any food or medical supplies to reach all Fallujah citizens as a punishment to those who have refused to join the terrorist organization, he added.

“The number of trapped citizens exceeds 100 thousand- most of which are children, women, and senior citizens. This figure is singled out of a total of 620 thousand people residing in Fallujah and its suburbs,” al-Sha’lan added.
“ISIS’s barricade is focused on the city’s center.”

He confirmed that thousands of entrapped civilians face starvation and disease spread, as their meals have been restricted to expired dried dates and wild greens. ISIS militants took over all medical and food aid storages in Fallujah.

Provincial authorities in Anbar have previously called on the Iraqi government and the international community to airdrop humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in the ISIS-occupied Fallujah.

“Humanitarian aid has to be airdropped to the stranded people inside Fallujah until the city is liberated from ISIS,” said Suhaib al-Rawi, the Governor of Anbar province.

“Since the beginning of this year, Anbar authorities in coordination with the Iraqi security forces have opened safe corridors to the people of Fallujah fleeing from ISIS,” Rawi explained. “But ISIS has planted bombs on the corridor,” he added.