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Fourty-six Iraqis, mainly children and women, were killed in an airstrike by Iraqi military east of Ramadi on Thursday according to Iraqi medical and local sources.

A local official said: "Fourty-six civilians were killed and 53 others were injured as a result of bombing carried out by an airplane belonging to the Iraqi Air Force on a village east of Ramadi, specifically an area known as Al-Ibra, used by locals to travel between Ramadi and other areas."

The source pointed out that "the aircraft missile targeted those present in the area," describing the incident as a "real massacre," and said that "a number of victims died because their relatives couldn't transfer them to medical centres as a result of the siege imposed by the military forces and tribal militants on areas east of Ramadi."

A medical doctor in Khalidiyah Hospital, Omar al-Jughaifi, told al-Araby al-Jadeed that "the hospital sent plastic containers to collect the victims' remains, particularly the children, who were gathering near a water pump to play because of the heat."

One of Anbar's elders, Rokan al-Dulaimi criticised the airstrike calling it a "barbaric bombardment by Iraqi forces of cities packed with unarmed civilians," adding that "this massacre is not the first to be committed in the province and was preceded by other massacres in Ar-Rutbah, Fallujah, al-Karma and Ramadi."

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Parliament Speaker Saleem al-Jabouri have called for the airstrikes to be stopped immediately and pointed out to the "danger of this matter, which will push the citizens of the province into the arms of the Islamic State group that takes advantage of these opportunities to mobilise against security forces."