50,000 people remain trapped in Iraq's Fallujah: UN

By Fatih Erel

GENEVA

About 50,000 people remain trapped in Fallujah, some 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, as fighting intensifies, the U.N. warned on Monday.

"Thousands flee Fallujah as fighting intensifies," UNICEF, the World Food Program (WFP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a joint statement on Monday.

In the past 10 days, approximately 10,000 people have come to a series of camps established to receive people escaping the fighting between the terrorist group Daesh and Iraqi forces, it said.

"An estimated 50,000 people remain trapped in the city as the military offensive continues. The government of Iraq had established a number of camps for the 60,000 people already displaced in Anbar [province], and in anticipation of movement from the Fallujah area," the statement said.

The UN warned that the conflict was expected to escalate and with that more people will be displaced.

According to UN, more than 3.4 million people are displaced all over Iraq, more than half of them children, and more than 10 million people in the country need lifesaving humanitarian assistance.