BAGHDAD
Iraq’s Al-Wataniya coalition said in a Saturday press conference that, since the beginning of Ramadan on June 18, some 90 civilians had been killed and 100 injured in the western Anbar province’s city of Fallujah – currently held by the Daesh militant group – by Iraqi army shelling.
According to a local medical source, another 21 civilians were killed on Saturday by Iraqi army shelling in the flashpoint city.
“Terrorism cannot be confronted by [dropping] burning barrels that do not discriminate [between combatants and civilians], like what was seen in the town of Al-Nukhayb [in Anbar],” coalition member MP Hamed al-Mutlaq said at Saturday’s press conference.
“We expect the prime minister to endorse the [proposed] political bill that includes a general amnesty for innocent parties currently detained with a view to achieving national reconciliation, reversing unjust regulations, and finding a solution to the plight of displaced persons,” al-Mutlaq added.
Al-Wataniya is a liberal political coalition that includes both Shia and Sunni members of parliament. It is led by former Iraqi President Ayad Allawi.
According to Sheikh Abu Mohamed al-Delimi, a tribal chief in Fallujah, the town of Al-Hitaween and a number of villages in the city’s southern and southeastern areas had recently been subject to fierce shelling by the Iraqi army.
“Scores of civilians have been killed and injured by haphazard army shelling of residential areas,” said al-Delimi.
A source at Fallujah General Hospital said the hospital had received 21 bodies, including those of seven children and five women, along with 26 injured people, also including women and children.
The source attributed the casualties to “Iraqi army artillery and mortar strikes on residential parts of the Al-Hitaween and Zobaa areas, along with other areas of Fallujah, according to accounts given by the injured.”
On June 23, Anbar’s provincial council urged the Iraqi army to refrain from shelling civilian areas of the Daesh-held city.
