[News] Plea to lift siege as Falluja toll mounts

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Plea to lift siege as Falluja toll mounts

Thursday 08 April 2004 8:59 AM GMT


Doctors in Falluja want the siege on the town lifted for shifting patients 
with serious injuries even as brutal street battles rage.

Two hundred and eighty people have been killed since the start of the siege 
and 400 more injured, said Tahr al-Issawi, the director of Falluja's 
hospital on Thursday.

"We also know of dead and wounded in various places buried under rubble, 
but we cannot reach them because of the fighting," he said.

Clinics in the town, 65km west of Baghdad, are struggling to treat victims 
of the US attacks, said Aljazeera's correspondent Ahmad Mansur.

US helicopters and snipers are firing on ambulances and civilian vehicles 
trying to take the wounded to clinics or the hospital, the correspondent said.


"One civilian car trying to reach a clinic hoisted a white flag but still 
came under fire," he said.

Occupation forces also refused to allow trucks carrying aid, including 
medicine, food and water, to enter Falluja on Thursday said Aljazeera's 
correspondent Abd al-Qadir Ayad.

In a show of unity, thousands of Iraqis had collected the relief material 
for delivery.

Meanwhile, Muhsin Abd al-Hamid, a member of the US-appointed Iraqi 
Governing Council, called on occupation forces to end the bloodshed in 
Falluja.

Speaking to Aljazeera, al-Hamid condemned the siege and threatened to 
withdraw from the council if the fighting did not stop.

Street battles

Some 40 more injured people, mainly women and children, were admitted to 
the hospital on Thursday.

US forces besieged the town after last week's ambush in which four security 
guards were killed and their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets.

They have been trying for four days to take control of the town of 300,000 
but are facing stiff resistance.

Residents have started digging a new cemetery since they are unable to 
reach any of the towns cemeteries to bury the victims. According to Muslim 
practice the dead need to be buried within 24 hours.

More mosque attacks?

US warplanes continue to attack residential areas and circle above mosques, 
said Mansur, a day after occupation forces dropped bombs on a mosque.

Initially, military officials said resistance fighters were holed up in the 
Abd al-Aziz Samarai mosque, leaving 40 "fighters" dead and five US marine 
"casualties".

But a marine officer was later forced to admit that US forces had failed to 
find any bodies.

However, a family in a car outside of the mosque were killed in the attack. 
Many civilians have taken refuge in Falluja's mosques.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt defended the occupations attack on a mosque, 
warning more of Iraqs mosques could be targeted if they offered refuge to 
resistance fighters.

An Aljazeera crew, including cameramen Layf Muftaq and Hasan Walid, sound 
engineer Sayf al-Din and correspondent Hamid Hadid, are the only television 
media personnel inside the town.

Aljazeera
By

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79CAAE90-3E7F-4815-B47D-46863A64A7E6.htm 


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