- Title: IRAQ: IRAQIS CONTINUE TO LEAVE BASRA AS FIGHTING CONTINUES.
- Date: 31st March 2003
- Summary: (W6) OUTSKIRTS OF BASRA, SOUTHERN IRAQ (MARCH 30, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. LV/GV: PEOPLE LEAVING BASRA WITH HEAVY SMOKE BILLOWING IN BACKGROUND (3 SHOTS) 0.14 2. GV/LV: VARIOUS OF DESTROYED FACTORY/ HEAVY SMOKE (2 SHOTS) 0.24 3. GV/MV: VARIOUS OF BRITISH SOLDIERS CHECKING IRAQIS TRYING TO LEAVE (3 SHOTS) 0.41 4. GV/PAN: SOLDIER RUNNING TO
- Embargoed: 15th April 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: OUTSKIRTS OF BASRA, SOUTHERN IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVA790MZONVYWA7NK9QFT1S1KXTV
- Story Text: Iraqis have continued to flee Basra as fighting between
coalition forces and militia loyal to Saddam Hussein
continues.
Iraqi civilians fled Basra on Sunday (March 30), taking
advantage of a pause in shelling. All were checked by British
soldiers manning military checkpoints on the outskirts of the
city.
"They're trying to transport weapons or certainly trying
to transport themselves and their manpower so, effectively, by
searching as they come through we're identifying some of them
- not all of them - but as many as we can. And obviously they
become prisoners of war because they are combatants, still,"
said Captain Alex Cosby of the Irish Guards.
Others, most of them men, streamed back into town.
British soldiers on the city's outskirts said that many of
the men re-entering were looking for family members to bring
them out to safety.
But there were also fears that some of the men might be
Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes drifting into the city,
which is still in Iraqi hands, to help reinforce its defences.
"Further on up in the city, it's very much controlled by
the Fayedeen and by members of the Republican Guard who are in
there who are also dressed up in civilian clothes and they are
very much coercing the regular armies to fight against their
will, we believe," Cosby said.
The British were carefully checking the few vehicles
allowed to go into Basra for weapons and uniforms, and most
people were made to leave their cars and walk the four
kilometres (two miles) to the city.
Basra, home to around 1.5 million people, has been bombed
by fighter planes and come under shell fire since U.S. and
British troops invaded Iraq 11 days ago to topple President
Saddam Hussein.
Western tanks on Sunday controlled roads around the city
but had not penetrated the centre where, residents say, life
goes on as normal under the firm rule of Saddam loyalists.
"I love Saddam Hussein," shouted one resident to soldiers
at the military checkpoint.
According to the city's inhabitants, police are deployed
throughout the urban area and traffic police keep rickety cars
flowing as clouds of black smoke drift over the city, shells
explode and gunfire crackles.
But water supplies are running low and the prices of
tomatoes and other vegetables are rocketing.
Life seems less normal on the edge of the city where the
debris of war lies beside a bridge and bullets are scattered
on the dirt near an abandoned Iraqi tank.
Hundreds of people queue in long lines to get into Basra
each day to sell vegetables at the local market. Or they
simply go home after visiting relatives in nearby towns.
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