Iraqi authorities have made arrests as part of an investigation into allegations that Shia militiamen helping the army retake Fallujah had executed dozens of Sunni Muslim men fleeing the city held by self-proclaimed Islamic State.
Iraqi authorities "are following up on the violations and a number of arrests have been made," government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said after a regional governor said 49 Sunni men had been executed after surrendering to a Shia faction.
Sohaib al-Rawi, governor of Anbar province where Fallujah is located, said yesterday that 643 men had gone missing between 3 June and 5 June, and "all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means."
The participation of militias in the battle of Fallujah, just west of Baghdad, alongside the Iraqi army had already raised fears of sectarian killings.
Iraq's Defence Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said four military personnel were arrested after video footage showed them abusing people displaced from Fallujah.
He pledged on Twitter to prosecute any serviceman involved in such acts.
Meanwhile, 4,000 residents have fled the city in the last 24 hours on a safe corridor established by the Iraqi army, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
"The army opened a safe corridor for families fleeing from Fallujah through Al-Salam intersection," an officer with the Joint Operations Command supervising the fight against the so-called Islamic State militant group said yesterday evening.
The Al-Salam intersection is southwest of the besieged IS stronghold, against which Iraqi forces launched a vast offensive on 22-23 May.
Around 24,000 people have fled IS rule since the operation was launched but very few had been able to leave central Fallujah, where the jihadists are using civilians as human shields.
Residents had been taking huge risks to flee, walking along mined roads and trying to cross the Euphrates River at any cost.
"The latest figure we have is that 4,000 individuals have managed to get out over the past 24 hours," the NRC's regional media adviser Karl Schembri said.
"We are of course relieved, but it also means we are completely overwhelmed as a humanitarian community," he told AFP, warning that the available resources of safe drinking water would not meet the needs of all the displaced for much longer.
Mr Schembri said that the general aid effort in Iraq was massively underfunded, hampering the delivery of urgent relief.
In the short term, he said, the response to the Fallujah operation would require €8.9m over the next six months if another 35,000 people were displaced.
Before the safe passage was opened, the NRC estimated that 50,000 civilians were trapped inside Fallujah.
