A wounded boy arrives at a hospital in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq on Saturday, May 3, 2008.

May 5, 2008

Deaths and injuries are soaring in the Sadr City as U.S. troops increase their military and economic pressure on the city home to more than 2.5 million people.

More than 532 people among them women and children have been killed in the past two weeks, hospital sources in the city said.

The sources, refusing to be named, said they have so far treated 2,563 serious injuries.

Most of the deaths and injuries, the sources added, have occurred due to random shelling by U.S. warplanes and helicopter gun ships.

U.S. snipers are also responsible as many of the hits are in the head, chest and legs, the sources said.

At least 14 percent of those killed and injured so far are children, 12 percent women and the rest are men of different ages.

The troops have blocked all entries to the citys for the third week and the sources said their supplies of medicine and other essential items were dangerously low.

The Zahra Maternity Hospital in the city has been closed and the other two hospitals in are working under extremely difficult circumstances.

U.S. shelling has destroyed at least 310 buildings, damaged 625 shops and wrecked 180 vehicles, police sources say.

Schools have been closed for more than a month and government offices as well as municipal services have stopped functioning.