Residents: Baqouba Is Deadly Ghost City

BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press

Many residents of Baqouba say they live hunkered down in cold, dark houses afraid to go out, that the once mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods are riven by sectarian cleansing, that the police force has virtually collapsed, and that longtime rituals _ like the annual orange festival _ have become unthinkable (...) Maj. Gen. Shaker Hulayel, commander of the 5th Division of the Iraqi army, added that "residents are going as usual with their work. ... Markets are open and trade continues. This is in addition to recruitment for police forces that are going on." Residents interviewed by AP reporters on the basis that their names not be used because of security fears acknowledge markets are open, but, they say, only for a few hours a day. They say they are able to duck out for supplies, mostly food, for brief periods. They also said they feel isolated, because roads in and out are too dangerous to use, phones work only sporadically. Electricity is rare. Water, they contend, flows through city mains about an hour a day...

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