Red Cross Returns After
Fallujah Offensive
Tallahassee.com
Posted on Fri, Dec. 10, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Red Cross team entered Fallujah for the
first time since a U.S.-led offensive devastated the city and met
with Iraqi technicians and engineers to discuss the city's sewage
and water treatment needs, a group spokesman said Friday.
But the team, which entered the city on Tuesday, did not have
time to inspect a potato chip warehouse where the military said
the bodies of several hundred insurgents or civilians were
stored.
The team had wanted to visit the site to verify the number of
dead.
"We couldn't reach the warehouse because of the time
limitations," said Ahmed Rawi, a spokesman for the International
Committee of the Red Cross who went on the trip. "The ICRC will
follow up this issue with the concerned authorities in terms of
documenting and then burying the bodies."
Rawi said the Red Cross team's movement in the city was
limited because of a curfew and because it had to get out before
dark. During the time the group was there, the city was mostly
quiet except for some sporadic gunfire in the distance, he
said.
Rawi didn't know where the warehouse was located, but seemed
to be referring to a former potato chip factory on the outskirts
of the city that has been doubling as a temporary morgue for the
bodies that U.S. military officials say are of insurgents killed
in the fighting in Fallujah. But U.S. officials have acknowledged
some of the bodies are too badly decomposed to be identified.
Dozens of bodies in black bags remain in the factory, which
has an antiquated refrigeration system. Marines say that the
bodies are being treated according to Islamic traditions, with
Muslim religious clerics showing them the proper way to bury the
corpses.
The U.S. military claims that 1,200 insurgents were killed in
the invasion, which began on Nov. 8 and ended a week later. At
least 50 Marines and eight Iraqi soldiers were killed, while no
civilian casualty figures have been released.
During the visit, the team found that sewage had flooded the
streets in parts of Fallujah, Rawi said.
"We reviewed their needs, especially since all the sewage
plants and water refining stations in the city are not working,"
he said. "Soon, we will send them some equipment and materials
that they need in order to get these stations working."
The ICRC's mandate is to care for the wounded and other
victims of war and it rejects military escorts to demonstrate its
independence in conflict zones.
According to Iraqi aid group figures, 210,600 people fled
Fallujah after the invasion began on Nov. 8. At least 120,000 of
them are in the nearby town of Amiriyah, while about 35,000 went
to Baghdad.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society, the ICRC's sister
organization, has temporarily pulled out of Fallujah, meaning
there are no humanitarian aid groups in the city.
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