Baghdad, Dec 1 (IANS): A total of 1,232 Iraqis were killed and 2,434 injured in terrorist attacks and violence across Iraq in November, according to a statement issued Monday by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).
Baghdad, Dec 1 (IANS): A total of 1,232 Iraqis were killed and 2,434 injured in terrorist attacks and violence across Iraq in November, according to a statement issued Monday by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).
The statement said that 936 civilians, including 61 policemen, and 296 Iraqi security forces personnelwere killed, while 1,826 others, including 71 policemen, were wounded. An additional 608 security members were wounded in terrorist and violent acts during the month.
The UNAMI excluded the casualties in Anbar province where fierce clashes flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi in late December last year, Xinhua reported citing the statement, adding that it has received some figures of casualties from the provincial health department, but “in some cases, UNAMI could only partially verify certain incidents”.
The statement added that “UNAMI has also received, without being able to verify, reports of large numbers of casualties along with unknown numbers of persons who died due to lack of water, food, medicines and healthcare after they fled their homes”.
“With nearly 12,000 people killed and nearly 22,000 injured since the beginning of 2014, Iraqis continue to be subjected daily to the unspeakable horrors of killing, maiming, reign of terror, displacement, extreme forms of intolerance and poverty,” the statement quoted UN envoy and UNAMI chief Nickolay Mladenov as saying.
“I take this opportunity to continue encouraging the Iraqi political, religious and social leaders to act decisively to rise above their differences in order to resolve the pending political, social and economic problems, and restore confidence among Iraq’s communities, more particularly those disaffected groups, as part of consolidating the democratic process,” Mladenov said.
The security situation in the country has deteriorated drastically since June, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and militants of the Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical group
The militants took control of the country’s northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories after Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces.
