BAGHDAD (AP) – Families have begun returning to Fallujah three months after the Iraqi city was declared fully liberated from the Islamic State group, an Iraqi official said Saturday.
Forty families were cleared to return after they passed background checks and their neighborhoods were deemed safe, Suhaib al-Rawi, governor of the western Anbar province, said.
In total 236 families returned Saturday to Fallujah and surrounding suburbs, his added. Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, had a pre-conflict population of more than 300,000 people.
Fallujah was declared “fully liberated” in late June after a monthlong operation by Iraqi forces aided by U.S.-led airstrikes. Fallujah had been the first Iraqi city to fall to IS, in January 2014.
The nearby city of Ramadi was also retaken from IS earlier this year, but remains largely uninhabitable due to destruction caused by the fighting and explosives left behind by IS.