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US 1 000 - Iraqis 30 000 dead
09/09/2004 09:54 - (SA)
Baghdad - At Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10 363 violent deaths in Baghdad and nearby towns since the war began last year - deaths caused by car bombs, clashes between Iraqis and coalition forces, mortar attacks, revenge killings and robberies.
While America mourns the deaths of more than 1 000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraq campaign, the United States toll is far less than the Iraqi. No official, reliable figures exist for the whole country, but private estimates range from 10 000 to 30 000 killed since the United States invaded in March 2003.
The violent deaths recorded in the leather ledger at the Sheik Omar Clinic come from only one of Iraq's 18 provinces and do not cover people who died in such flashpoint cities as Najaf, Karbala, Fallujah, Tikrit and Ramadi.
'Now the killing is done openly'
Iraqi dead include not only insurgents, police and soldiers but also civilian men, women and children caught in crossfire, blown apart by explosives or shot by mistake - both by fellow Iraqis or by American soldiers and their multinational allies. And they include the victims of crime that has surged in the instability that followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Adding to the complexity of sorting out what has happened, the records that have been kept don't always say whether a death came in a combat situation or from some other cause.
The prospect of violent death is the latest burden for a people who suffered through decades of war and a brutal dictatorship under Saddam, whose regime has been accused by human rights groups of killing as many as 300 000 Iraqis it deemed enemies.
"During Saddam's days killings were silent. Now the killing is done openly and loudly," said Ghali Karim Hassan, who lost his 31-year-old son, Ghaidan, last April.
In a country where the dead are often buried quickly without proper accounting by authorities, the real number of Iraqis whose lives were cut short in the Iraq conflict may never be known.
US officials said they didn't have the resources to track civilian deaths during the US-led occupation, which ended officially June 28. Iraq's central authorities also haven't reported comprehensive figures on civilian deaths - while record-keeping was meticulous under Saddam, the interim government didn't even begin trying to keep track until five months ago.
"It is difficult to establish the right number of casualties," said a spokesperson for Amnesty International, Nicole Choueiry. Her London-based human rights organisation estimates more than 10 000 Iraqi civilians died in the first year of the conflict alone.
Hazem al-Radini at the Human Rights Organisation in Iraq said his group estimates the toll at more than 30 000 civilian deaths. He said the group didn't have any statistics and based the figure on reports by Iraqi news media.
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