At least 1,075 people have been killed in Iraq during June, most of them civilians, according to United Nations human rights monitors.
At least 757 civilians were killed and 599 injured in Nineveh, Diyala and Salah al-Din provinces from June 5 to 22, the UN team in Iraq said.
Spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva the figure “should be viewed very much as a minimum” and includes some verified summary executions and extrajudicial killings of civilians, police, and soldiers who had stopped fighting. He says at least another 318 people were killed and 590 injured during the same time in Baghdad and areas in southern Iraq, many of them from at least six vehicle-borne bombs.
The deaths in the northern provinces came as troops led by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad failed to stop the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).
The UN’s Iraq team is also trying to verify what Colville called “a number of alleged human rights violations that have been taking place in Iraq” since Isis’s advances in early June.
He told reporters that kidnappings of foreigners and others continue in the northern provinces and in Baghdad, including 48 Turkish citizens taken from Turkey’s consulate when Isis captured Mosul, and 40 Indian nationals who had been working for an Iraqi construction company.
According to UN figures, the casualty ratefrom the violence and terror in Iraq this monthis among the highest of the past three years
But he said 16 Georgians reported kidnapped 10 days ago have been released and 44 other foreign workers abducted by Isis when they captured Al-Door have also been freed and returned safely after local tribal leaders negotiated between the Iraqi army and Isis.“Tragically some of those who have been abducted have been subsequently found dead, and summary executions also apparently continue to take place,” Colville said.
The findings show the casualty rate from violence and terror so far in June is already among the highest since the US troop pullout from the country two years ago.
They provide new evidence that Iraq is grappling with its worst surge in violence since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, when the country was pushed to the brink of civil war despite the presence of tens of thousands of US troops.
While the violence has been nowhere as widespread as it was more than half a decade ago during the US-led international military presence, it is fast increasing with the Sunni insurgency added to the bombings and shootings that still happen nearly every day.
According to UN figures, the casualty rate from the violence and terror in Iraq this month is among the highest of the past three years.
The casualty rate is higher than a month ago, when the UN said that at least 799 Iraqis were killed and 1,108 injured. The dead in May – which was previously the high for this year – included 459 civilians, 196 Iraqi security force members and 144 civilian police.
In April, 750 Iraqis were killed and another 1,541 were injured, the UN said. That included 470 civilians, 140 civilian police and 140 Iraqi security force members.