UN report: Iraqi civilians are dying at ‘staggering’ rate

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

Iraq witnessed a sharp increase in civilian deaths after the fall of large swaths of territory to the Islamic State group in the summer of 2014. Now despite a string of recent battlefield losses for IS, civilians in Iraq continue to die at a “staggering” rate, according to a new United Nations report.

At least 18,802 civilians were killed and an additional 36,245 were wounded in Iraq between the start of 2014 and Oct. 31 of last year, according to the U.N. report released Tuesday. In just one six-month period between May and October last year, more than 10,000 civilians were killed.

“Despite their steady losses to pro-government forces, the scourge of ISIL continues to kill, maim and displace Iraqi civilians in the thousands and to cause untold suffering,” U.N. envoy Jan Kubis said in a statement, using an alternative acronym for the extremist group.

The numbers are nowhere near the death tolls recorded during Iraq’s bloody civil war. In 2006 alone, more than 34,000 civilians were killed, according to U.N. data.

The following year, the Iraqi government refused to provide the U.N. with death-toll statistics, stating that the government wanted to prevent the data from painting a negative image of the country. But civilian casualties since the rise of IS in Iraq are considerably higher than the preceding years of relative stability. In 2011, the number of civilian deaths due to violence was at its lowest since the civil war, with fewer than 2,800 killed.