IRAQ: Fighting in Falluja has created a humanitarian disaster in which innocent people are dying because medical help cannot reach them, aid workers in Iraq said yesterday.
In one case, a pregnant woman and her child died in a refugee camp west of the city after the mother unexpectedly aborted and no doctors were on hand, Ms Firdoos al-Ubadi, an official from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, said.
In another case, a young boy died from a snake bite that would normally have been easily treatable, she said.
"From a humanitarian point of view it's a disaster, there's no other way to describe it. And if we don't do something about it soon, it's going to spread to other cities."
At least 2,200 families have fled Falluja in recent days and are struggling to survive without enough water, food or medicine in nearby towns and villages, she said.
Some families have fled as far as Tikrit, about 150km north of Falluja.
But the biggest concern is people in and around Falluja - they can't be reached because US and Iraqi forces have set up a wide cordon around the city to prevent anyone from entering and insurgents from fleeing.
It is unclear how many civilians are left in Falluja, but the US military estimates 150,000, or half the entire population, have fled the city since they began shaping up for an offensive in October.
The Muslim Clerics' Association estimates about 60,000 people are still there but it is unknown how they arrived at the figure.
Because of the chaos no official numbers are available.
Many of those who fled are with relatives and do not show up in refugee statistics.