• Iraq
  • January 17, 2007
  • 2 minutes read

IIP Rights Chief: Actual Death Toll Sectarian Violence 2 Times Higher Than UN’s

Mr. Omar Al Gabouri, the human rights manager in the Iraqi Islamic Party confirmed that the death toll of the sectarian violence is actually two times higher than what the United Nations declared and that this death toll is only of those registered in the government medical services.

Al Gabouri attributed this to several reasons: police brigades control over key institutions affiliated to the Iraqi Defense Ministry, not burying bodies, going to government medical services and taking a death certificates for fear of liquidation, in addition to the massacres committed by the militias and throwing bodies in mass graves in neighborhoods like Al-Saidiya, Dora, Al Amel District, Mahmoudiya and Al Yousfiya; the residents of these nieghbourhoods can reach the morgue of the forensic medicine in addition the militias’ control over all Health Ministry facilities .
 
Al Gabouri added that”: Therefore, the death toll reached such a record rise which we think is not the real number; we believe that it is two times higher than the death toll declared by the UN Rights Watchdog”, to give more evidence that these militias are penetrating and control to a great extent the security situation in Baghdad .
 
It is worth mentioning that the United Nations declared last Tuesday in its periodic report that more than 34 thousand Iraqis were killed in sectarian hostilities that took place in 2006.
 
This number contradicts with the numbers that the Interior Ministry declared, only 15000 killed last year.
 
The Iraqi authorities refused to release any report about last year’s death toll, although human rights agencies issued higher death toll than the one issued by the interior ministry.