BAGHDAD: A senior Iraqi official has appealed to the US-led coalition to air-drop food and medicine to tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Fallujah, the Daesh stronghold under siege by security forces.

The city’s population is suffering from a shortage of food, medicine and fuel, according to residents reached by phone, and local media said several people had died due to starvation and insufficient medical care.

Insecurity and poor communications inside the city make those reports difficult to verify.

Sohaib Al Rawi, the governor of western Anbar province where Fallujah is located, said an air-drop was the only way to deliver humanitarian supplies to residents after Daesh mined the entrances to the city and prevented civilians from leaving.

“No force can enter and secure (the delivery)... There is no option but for airplanes to transport aid,” he said in an interview to Al Hadath TV late on Monday, adding the situation was deteriorating by the day.

The coalition, which includes European and Arab powers, has not previously committed significant resources to humanitarian operations.

Rawi said the militants were using civilians as human shields like they did in Ramadi — a tactic that slowed the advance of Iraqi forces.

He said media reports of up to 10 deaths due to starvation and insufficient medical care were accurate, but Iraqi officials could not provide details.

Lise Grande, UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Iraq, described conditions in Falluja as “terrible.”

“We’re incredibly worried about the unconfirmed reports of people dying because of lack of medicine and widespread hunger,” she said.

The United Nations appealed on Sunday for $861 million to help Iraq meet a big funding gap in its 2016 emergency response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the war against Daesh which has left 10 million people in need of urgent aid.

Fallujah, a long-time bastion of Sunni militants located 50 km west of Baghdad, was the first Iraqi city to fall to Daeshin January 2014, six months before the group that emerged from Al Qaeda swept through large parts of northern and western Iraq and neighbouring Syria. The Iraqi army, police and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias have together imposed a near total siege on Fallujah since late last year.

After recapturing the city of Ramadi — a further 50 km to the west — from Daesh a month ago, Iraqi authorities have not made clear whether they will attempt to take Fallujah next or leave it contained while the bulk of their forces head north towards Mosul, the largest city under the militants’ control.

The US-led coalition estimates there are around 400 Daesh fighters in Fallujah, though some military analysts put the figure closer to 1,000.

The US-led coalition fighting Daesh aims this year to recapture Iraq’s second city Mosul, working with Iraqi government forces, and drive the militants out of Raqqa, their stronghold in northeast Syria, Arab and Western officials say.

If it succeeds, the coalition will have struck a crippling blow against Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

The strategy is to regain territory at the heart of Daesh’s cross-border state, take both its “capitals,” and destroy the confidence of its fighters that it can expand as a Sunni caliphate and magnet for militants, according to these Arab and Western officials, few of whom were willing to speak on the record on a matter of such strategic sensitivity.

“The plan is to hit them in Raqqa in Syria and in Iraq at Mosul, to crush their capitals,” said an Iraqi official with knowledge of the strategy.