27 May 2014

Fallujah is still under strict security measures, amid substantiated reports of plans to launch an offensive into the city within hours or within the next few days. Meanwhile a military operation to re-establish control over the uncompleted buildings belonging to Fallujah University in the southwestern sector of the city began at dawn yesterday.

Many of the city's residential districts have been shelled, including Al-Nu'aimiya to the south and Al-Sichir to the north. According to the Fallujah General Hospital, 2 residents have been killed and 4 others have been wounded up to noontime today.

Military operations are still underway in the areas around Al-Garma. We have also observed shelling of the southwestern districts of Al-Garma, northeast of Fallujah.

Military operations are also continuing in the desert areas along the Tigris, south of Fallujah. Security forces are saying that they will attempt a six-front assault on Fallujah from all around the city. Meanwhile strict security measures have been imposed on Amiriyat Al-Fallujah in order to prevent the gunmen from moving out of Fallujah into this township.

Anbar police sources have said that the operations in Ramadi are ongoing, and there have been reports from the Anbar Command confirming that security forces have regained control of large portions of Ramadi and that more than 90% of Ramadi's districts have been taken over by local police. Gunmen are now surrounded in a square-shaped area in southeastern Ramadi. We have seen that a few families have returned to the districts that have been liberated in the city that are now relatively calm.

Regarding those displaced from Ramadi and Fallujah after nearly five months of military operations, they are having to endure severe living conditions, especially those who left their homes when fighting first broke out. Their funds and other necessities they took with them are all gone. They are demanding of the local government to provide them with the funds allocated to them, and to provide them with their food aid allocations. They are also calling on all the various aid and relief agencies to provide them with food aid that they so desperately need, given the long duration of the crisis.

During our movements around Ramadi we have observed the collapse of the city's infrastructure; there is huge damage and destruction in most of Ramadi's residential districts. It is being reported that Ramadi's reconstruction will take five years to complete, according to the Anbar Governorate Council which pointed to the huge damage caused by military operations. The local government has called on the central government to begin disbursing the funds allocated for the compensation of Anbari residents.