ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least four children have died of starvation in the Sunni-majority Fallujah, the city west of Baghdad that fell to the Islamic State (ISIS) and other insurgent groups more than two years ago. “So far, four children have died of starvation and the situation in Fallujah is only getting worse,” Saadun Obeid, Fallujah’s mayor, told Rudaw. “No food or medicines are left in Fallujah. We have asked Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send us humanitarian assistance but nothing has reached us,” Obeid added. He said the situation in the city has been deteriorating, with the number of starving people on the rise. Fallujah fell to ISIS in January 2014, the first Iraqi city to fall to the group, its population long distrustful of Baghdad. In early February Suhaib al-Rawi, the governor of Anbar which houses Fallujah and is Iraq’s largest province, appealed to the US-led coalition to air-drop food and medicines to the tens of thousands of civilians still trapped in the city. Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital, was retaken in a major Iraqi offensive backed by American-led coalition air-power last December. But an estimated 300 to 400 ISIS members still remain in Fallujah.
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