He added, "They always thought they would at some point be kicked out of Ramadi, but not Fallujah because of the town’s religious symbolism."
Jumaili said that almost all of the city had been cleared of the explosives that had been planted during the group’s presence there. Al-Monitor was told that a plume of gray smoke rising from one area of the city during the visit was part of the destruction of explosive devices that were found.
The main hospital now provides only basic stabilization services to patients, and like most of the town, it has only unpurified water for a few hours every day, a junior doctor told Al-Monitor. The young doctor said that most of the complaints were related to gastrointestinal problems due to unhygienic conditions and the drinking of unsafe water. He said he had not seen a single case of a civilian harmed by explosive devices left in homes by retreating IS fighters.
On a visit to a school that had just reopened days before — though some of the classrooms on the second floor are still in rubble — one of the teachers told Al-Monitor that he did not feel safe in the town. "Some of the tribes are with the government and some are not," he noted, adding that he had sent his sons to Turkey during the war because "one is named Omar [a typical name for Sunnis] and the Shiite groups in Baghdad would have killed him."
Reports have denounced extrajudicial killings and torture by Shiite militias of Fallujah men and boys.
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