IRAQ: Iraqi deaths hit new high in October and more than 2 million have fled the country since the U.S. invasion, UN report says

A country in chaos, a terrorised population under siege in neighbourhoods polarised on sectarian lines or on the move in their hundreds of thousands to escape worsening violence. That was the picture of Iraq depicted in a new U.N. human rights report on Wednesday (November 22). Iraqi deaths hit a new high in October and more than 2 million people have fled their homes since the U.S. invasion. October's civilian death toll of 3,709 (120 a day) was up from 3,345 in September, according to U.N. figures based on Health Ministry data. July's death toll of 3,590 had been the highest to date. The report said the deteriorating security situation increased poverty and generated "unparalleled" population movement, with 418,392 people displaced within Iraq due to sectarian violence since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, which triggered a surge in violence. It said in addition to those displaced in Iraq, nearly 100,000 people were fleeing to Syria and Jordan every month, taking the total number estimated to have sought refuge abroad since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003 to 1.6 million. Baghdad was the epicentre of the violence, accounting for nearly 5,000 of all the deaths in September and October, with most of the bodies bearing signs of torture and gunshot wounds. In its bimonthly human rights report, the United Nations said sectarian attacks were the main source of violence, fuelled by insurgent attacks and militias as well as criminal groups. "The type of violence has also changed in the past few months," said the head of the UN's human rights office in Baghdad, Gianni Magazzeni. "I think we have seen a great increase in sectarian violence and activities by not only insurgents and terrorists but also militias and armed groups and criminal gangs that often operate on the margins of security forces as well. I think that this is a phenomenon which is typical particularly of the time here since the Samarra bombing of February of this year," he said. The report raised questions about the sectarian loyalties and effectiveness of Iraq's 300,000-strong U.S.-trained security forces ahead of next week's meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to discuss speeding up the handover of security control to Iraq. The UN said that entire communities have been devastated by the violence, with neighbourhoods being split up and residents forced to flee to other areas, or even other countries in search of safety. In the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, people live in squalor. They live under scraps of plastic sheeting amongst the rubble of battle-worn abandoned buildings. They are furious at their living conditions and demand that Iraq's politicians visit the slum to see for themselves just how bad life has got for displaced people in Iraq. Juma'a Hassan shouted angrily, "Let him come and see (Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki). Let him come today and see those displaced families and the way that we are living. We are made ill because of this. Why? Why they did not come and see us, see these displaced families? Where should we go and to whom should we speak?" Most of the 100,000 Iraqis fleeing the country every month are heading to neighbouring Sunni Muslim Syria and Jordan, the report said, a number of them doctors, lawyers, teachers and journalists, who it said were increasingly targets of violence.

ITN Source | November 24, 2006

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