4 000 Iraqis killed in 2005

2005-07-31 21:11

Baghdad - More than 4 000 Iraqis have been killed since the start of the year, half of them civilians, official figures said as legislators struggled to reach agreement on a draft constitution by Monday.

The bloodiest months were May and July, coinciding respectively with the setting up of the new government and the start of constitutional talks, according to figures released by the defence, interior and health ministries.

Since January, 2 072 civilians were killed in politically-motivated acts of violence, along with 308 Iraqi soldiers and 765 policemen.

A total of 434 civilians, 150 policemen and 88 soldiers were killed in May, and 412 civilians, 134 policemen and 45 soldiers in July.

In addition, 855 insurgents have been killed since the start of the year.

On Sunday, an additional five civilians were killed and 10 injured in a car bomb explosion on a highway 60 kilometres south of the capital, an interior ministry official said.

Study

Earlier this month, a study by two British groups - Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group - had put the number of Iraqi civilians killed since US forces invaded the country at about 25 000.

The estimate of 24 865 deaths covered a two-year period between March 2003 and March 2005.

This toll was considerably lower than that of 98 000 suggested in a study published last October by British-based medical journal The Lancet.

The Iraq Body Count-Oxford Research report attributed 37 percent of civilian deaths to foreign forces and nine percent to insurgents.

The official statistics released on Sunday do not take account of people killed as a result of common criminal activity.

- AFP