Nuriya's grandchildren drowned trying to flee besieged Fallujah

“We stayed in Fallujah’s city centre after it was taken over by ISIS. At first it was bearable, but then hunger started to hit us”, said Nuriya, when NRC's Karl Shembri and Asmaa Nuri met her in the Amiriyat Al - Fallujah camp on Saturday.

A few days earlier, the 50-year-old mother of five from Fallujah had to tell her own son about the loss of his three children.

Escaping the crossfire

“We escaped 10 days ago under the cover of darkness until we reached the river bank. We stayed there for two days without food until we managed to cross with other people. It was total chaos”, Nuriya recalls.  

The family was among crowds of civilians trapped on the bank of the river Euphrates, desperately hoping to escape Fallujah, which fell to ISIS in January 2014. Thousands of civilians are caught in the crossfire in and around Fallujah, as government forces and allied militias are trying to recapture the city from ISIS.

“Save us, save us”

After two days, Nuriya and her family got the chance to cross the river by boat. But they had to separate. Nuriya went on a boat ahead of the rest of the family.

“When the boat I was on reached the middle of the river I heard a lot of screams, another boat was sinking. People were shouting, ‘Save us, save us’. People jumped from the other side of the river and saved some of those who were drowning, but not my son’s two girls, aged 16 and eight, and his boy aged five”, said Nuriya.

She describes how their mother, Nuriya’s daughter-in-law, was holding on to two of them; one was still alive, the other already dead, until she lost them.

“I was shouting, ‘Where are the girls?’, but they told me they had drowned.”

“We’d die of hunger”

Nuriya’s son, the father of the children, was not able to cross the river. He remained inside the city of Fallujah. She herself called her son and told him that his children had drowned.

Nuriya cries when  she recalls the conversation and the reaction of her son.  

“He told me frantically to go back, everyone, dead and alive, we should all go back to him. I told him I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t. We’d die of hunger.  I couldn’t even return his dead children to him. If we went we’d die of hunger, mortars and shelling. His poor children drowned hungry — they hadn’t eaten in two days.”

Her son still remains in the city together with another son of hers. Now she has lost contact with them both.

“I don’t know what happened to them, but I can’t go back to them. We’d die of hunger if we go back.”

Still trapped inside Fallujah

This weekend 4,000 civilians fled Fallujah’s city centre in 24 hours, many of them risking their lives by crossing the Euphrates River.

“We’re relieved to see thousands finally make it out to safety from the Fallujah city centre, but thousands of others remain trapped inside and the most vulnerable will need urgent assistance”, said NRC's Country Director in Iraq, Nasr Muflahi.

Extreme hunger and despair

“We reiterate our call for safe routes for all civilians. We are also extremely worried that the current funding is running out; we are overwhelmed by the needs created by this crisis and international donors have to step up their funding”, Muflahi urges.

“We cannot let down innocent Iraqi women, children and men just at the moment when they escape from extreme hunger, brutal fighting and despair. This is a moment of truth for wealthier nations to stand by Iraqis who have been facing chronic displacement and untold suffering.”

BACKGROUND

• On May 23, Iraqi forces started the operation to recapture the city of Fallujah, which has been under the control of ISIS since January 2014.
• Thousands have managed to escape the city, but  50,000 are still believed to be trapped inside Fallujah.
• Supply routes to Fallujah have largely been cut after government forces recaptured nearby Ramadi, the capital of Anbar governorate, and the desert to the north.
• Reports in April suggested that more than 140 people had died from a lack of food or medicine in Fallujah.
• On June 13, the total number of people who managed to reach displacement camps since 21 May had reached 4,596 families or roughly 27,580 individuals.
• The resources of humanitarian agencies are overstretched with the new arrivals.
• NRC’s current funding, as of June 13, provides water to 75,000 displaced Iraqis every day for another 22 days, of which around 23,000 are from Fallujah.
• The overall Iraq humanitarian response plan is still only 30% funded—the Fallujah crisis comes on top of the needs estimated last January.