May deadliest month in Iraq this year – UN
June 4, 2014, 3:43 pm

Iraqi security forces have been unable to stop the ever-increasing wave of suicide bombers and car bombs rocking the country [Xinhua]

More than 80 per cent of those killed were civilians.

The UN figures, however, do not include the death toll from the western province of Anbar where government forces have been battling militia to seize control of the city of Falluja. The UN says it cannot verify casualties there because of the lack of security.

Meanwhile, two car bombs parked near a police installation and a commercial area killed at least seven civilians and a police officer in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Wednesday.

At the same time, at least seven people were killed and 12 injured when two bombs went off in the capital Baghdad; another two were killed when a bomb exploded in a marketplace in Taji, to the north.

Iraqi security sources also reported that a suicide bomber killed eight members of a Sunni tribal militia that has been in a vicious war against Al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Anbar province.

Fourteen people were also wounded in the attack.

On Monday, at least 57 people were killed and 120 injured in attacks in Baghdad, Falluja, Mosul, Shora, Najaf, Iskandariyah, Nasiriyah, and Tarmiyah.

The unabated violence comes just over a month after millions of Iraqis voted in the first general elections since US forces left the country.

The death toll in April, according to UN data, stood at 750.

“I strongly deplore the sustained level of violence and terrorist acts that continues rocking the country,” UN Special Representative in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said in a press statement.

“I urge the political leaders to work swiftly for the formation of an inclusive government within the constitutionally mandated time frame and focus on a substantive solution to the situation in Anbar,” he added.

The UN says that 2013’s death toll – nearly 9,000 dead and 15,000 wounded – was the highest since 2005-2007 when Shia and Sunni militias waged a vicious sectarian war.

Source: Agencies