Basra Residents Fired Upon When Fleeing City, British Say

British military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie McCourt told Reuters, ”A couple of thousand Iraqi civilians trying to get out of Basra to the north and west are being fired on by paramilitaries with both mortars and machineguns.”

Speaking at the war headquarters of the U.S.-led invasion forces in Qatar, McCourt said British forces were trying to help evacuate casualties from the incidents north and west of Basra.

In what appeared to be a similar but separate incident on the main road south out of the southern Iraqi city, forces loyal to Saddam Hussein fired mortar bombs near some 1,000 civilians waiting to cross a bridge, seriously injuring one woman, a British officer in Basra told Reuters.

A Reuters correspondent later crossed the same bridge into Basra and saw Iraqis shelling the British forces.

British troops ring Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city with a population of 1.3 million, in hopes of eliminating units still loyal to Saddam Hussein and opening the way for badly needed humanitarian aid.

A Sky News reporter with the 7th Armored Brigade, which is positioned to the north and west of the city, said that “People are trying to come out, looking for water and food. The problem for the British is that the paramilitaries are effectively being shielded by the civilians in front of them.”

British military spokesman Colonel Chris Vernon told Sky News Friday that the southern Iraqi city was “clearly nowhere near” under coalition forces’ control.

“We have no way at the moment of getting humanitarian aid into Basra,” he said. “But clearly, as we begin to pressurize Basra and to begin to dominate it militarily — nothing can move in or out — we should move towards the day we can get humanitarian aid in,” Vernon added.

Vernon explained that coalition forces have not entered the city center “for worry of collateral damage.”

“The key to Basra is to eradicate the Ba’ath Party control and the irregular forces operating under their control there,” Vernon said.

“Not easy, no time lines on it, but that’s what we are working towards,” he said.

A steady flow of people was trying to leave the besieged city, but Reuters reports it was not a massive exodus. For every two people trying to leave, one was looking to get back in, witnesses told Reuters.

People on the road out of Basra were begging for food and water from any vehicle passing by, but vehicles carrying fresh vegetables were still heading into the city.

British military intelligence reported earlier this week that Basra’s mainly Shi’ite population may have started an uprising against the ruling Baath Party, but officials later played down the report of revolt, speaking instead of unrest.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference in Baghdad Friday that 116 people had died and 659 had been injured in Basra since the war began on March 20.