Monday, November 8, 2004

Falluja General Hospital update

US-led Iraqi forces stormed a hospital in Falluja and detained many staff and patients.

Several hundred Iraqi troops barged into the one-storey building from two entry points on Monday and conducted room-to-room searches, cuffing at least 50 men inside.

About half of them were later released.

"All the hospital staff and doctors have been arrested," said a doctor at the hospital Dr Ahmad Ghanim.

"We are now in a very small and poorly-equipped alternative clinic. We are only 4-5 doctors with 5 assistants," Ghanim said on Monday.

The doctor added that US forces had grounded all ambulances and fired on and disabled the hospital's only car. Doctors were also running short of medicines.

...The hospital director said earlier that the facility was surrounded. "They are telling us over loud speakers that if we leave the building we will be shot at," Dr Salih al-Isawi said, adding that an ambulance that tried to exit the facility was fired upon.

It was not immediately clear if the driver was killed or wounded.

Al-Dulaimi said Falluja's general hospital had been undefended as it lay outside the city. "US forces have entered the hospital as it is not guarded; only doctors and patients are there," he said.
  Aljazeera article


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