WFP says serious food shortages in Fallujah, besieged by Iraqi army

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Humanitarian disaster is looming in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah, an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stronghold under siege by security forces, where tens of thousands of people face food shortages, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on March 8. 

There is no flour, rice, sugar or oil available in Fallujah and the prices of the little food that is left have risen sharply, the agency quoted Fallujah residents as telling it. 

Fuel and cooking oil are no longer available and the price of a kilo of flour leaped to 24,000 IQD ($20) in January, up more than 800 percent from December, the WFP said. 

The Iraqi army, police and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias - backed by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition - imposed a near total siege late last year on Fallujah, located 50 kilometers west of Baghdad in the Euphrates river valley. 

"The humanitarian situation in Fallujah is dire and residents need immediate assistance," WFP spokeswoman Marwa Awad told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

"We are aware that no food is going into the city and that militant groups are controlling the remaining food supplies." 

It has been too dangerous for the WFP to reach the area since September 2015, when it delivered a one-month supply of food to 400 families in Garma, 10 km from Fallujah, she said. 

"We are deeply concerned about the worsening humanitarian situation inside Fallujah where many people require immediate food assistance," Awad said. "We are ready to help but we are on standby until ... the authorities give the green light to go in." 

Of the estimated 30,000 - 60,000 residents of Fallujah, a "significant number" are surviving on potatoes and other local  food, after moving...

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