AMRIYAT FALLUJAH: Civilians desperate to flee Fallujah were having to dodge sniper fire from the militant Islamic State (IS) group, which was keen to keep its “human shields” inside the city as Iraqi forces closed in on Monday.

Families who managed to escape told of how IS militants opened fire on them as they crossed the Euphrates River on boats and makeshift rafts.

“We know from witness testimonies that civilians... are being forced to stay and are being threatened,” Nasr Muflahi, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Iraq director, said.

Footage carried by Iraqi channels showed civilians paddling for their lives on the river, others drifting in inflated wheel chambers.

“People are using anything that floats, from wardrobes to plastic containers,” said Caroline Gluck, spokeswoman for the UN’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Iraq.

“We know that people have drowned, at least one person was shot by a sniper as he was on some kind of boat or dinghy,” she said.

In Amriyat al-Fallujah, where NRC runs the camps housing most of those who have managed to escape IS-held areas, there are new arrivals every day.

“Daesh (IS) shot at us when we left the city from the south. We could hear bullets zipping above our heads as we were crawling through the countryside,” said a 60-year-old woman who was too scared to give her name.

“I shouted at them that I would never go back. ‘Kill me now’, I said. What point is there in living if my children are suffering?,” she said.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2016