REFUGEES escaping Fallujah described a humanitarian crisis in the city yesterday, with women and children killed by the US bombardment or dying for lack of medical treatment, medicines and sanitation.

At Al-Numan General Hospital in Baghdad, the families of civilian victims evacuated from Fallujah claimed that US forces were bombing outlying villages where refugees have regrouped, as well as the city.

“I was praying at the village mosque,” said Abu Mustafa, 35. “I heard a big bang so everybody rushed towards that explosion, which turned out to be an American missile.

“I saw a man carrying my son Mustafa, who is 14 months old. He was bleeding, with his left leg amputated, and then I looked for my wife and found her wounded with multiple fractures in the arms and legs. I used to sell sheep in Fallujah, and now I am a jobless man staying in hospital with a handicapped child and dying wife.”

US forces have so far not responded to appeals by the Iraqi Red Crescent to send medical teams into the city.

“From a humanitarian point of view, it is a disaster, there is no other way to describe it, Firdoos al-Ubaidi, of the Red Crescent, said. “And if we don’t do something about it soon, it will spread to other cities. We have asked for permission from the Americans to go into the city and help the people there but we haven’t heard anything back from them. There’s no medicine, no water, no electricity.”

In the chaos of battle it is difficult to reach an accurate figure for the number of civilians displaced from Fallujah, but it is tens of thousands. The US military estimates that half of the city’s 300,000 population have fled since it stepped up its bombardment last month. The Muslim Clerics’ Association, which backs the insurgency, says that only 60,000 remain.

Ms al-Ubaidi believes that 2,200 families have fled in the past few days to small towns and villages in the vicinity.

The Red Crescent said that a woman died after miscarrying in a refugee camp where no doctor was present. A boy died of a snake bite because there was no antidote available. A clinic used as an emergency hospital was hit by a bomb, killing many doctors, nurses and patients, medical staff said.

A boy aged 9 hit by shrapnel bled to death because he could not be taken to hospital.

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