Frustration grows as Falluja refugees wait to go home

FALLUJA, Iraq, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Residents of Falluja, the battle-scarred city west of Baghdad, must wait at least another week to return home, a U.S. military officer said.

Many who fled before a U.S. assault in November to drive out rebels are growing frustrated as they wait in tent camps to go home. They left more than six weeks ago with little more than their clothes and temperatures at night are now freezing.

Major Naomi Hawkins, a civil affairs officer dealing with the returnees, said on Sunday it would be a while longer before they go home.

"From now it is 7-10 days, but the plan is based on the security situation in the city," Hawkins said, with fighting continuing in several areas of the city. snip

There are signs guerrillas are trying to get back, with fighting in several districts that the U.S. military had thought were cleared and secured.

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Displaced Fallujah residents unsure of when they can return home

BAGHDAD, 20 December (IRIN) - Children play and sing songs around the tents they temporarily call home, as fathers queue to receive blankets from a local NGO. snip

"You should not believe it when they say the fighting has stopped," Nasser Mehssen, 48, told IRIN. "We are people from Fallujah, but we should also not be accused of being terrorists." snip

"The situation is still unstable. Security is still fluctuating all the time," Jamal al-Karbuli, secretary general of the IRCS, told IRIN. "It can be calm one minute but 15 minutes later you have to run and hide because of gunfire and worse."

If heads of households go home, they'll just be arrested anyway, the sheikh told IRIN, declining to be named. "This is dreaming, if they think we can go back," the sheikh said. "They detained all of the men from 15 to 50 - how can people like me go back?" snip

Under the Geneva Conventions, however, such people are considered to be civilians if they are in civilian dress and don't carry weapons, al-Karbuli said. At the same time, US forces are saying such "military-aged males" could be insurgents, he said.

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