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Baghdad shrine death toll: 220
28/02/2006 16:18 - (SA)
Baghdad - About 220 Iraqis were killed
around Baghdad alone in sectarian violence triggered by the
bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Iraq last week, the acting
director of the central morgue said on Tuesday.
Abdelrazzak al-Obeidi told Reuters his unit alone had
received 240 bodies since the attack on Wednesday, nearly all
victims of violence.
Morgue officials dismissed a report that more than 1 000
were killed. Not all Iraqi deaths in Baghdad are recorded in the
central morgue, but it sees a high proportion of those who die
violently. Other deaths are more typically recorded at
hospitals.
Obeidi's data, including a figure of 10 080 bodies in
Baghdad in 2005 of which 80% were violent deaths,
indicated such killings in the city were 70% above
average for the past six days.
The attack on the Golden Mosque in the town of Samarra north
of Baghdad set off sectarian reprisals and plunged Iraq into its
gravest crisis since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein
in 2003.
Iraqi and US officials disputed police tallies of deaths
and said on Saturday only 119 had died across Iraq by then.
Violence also struck outside the capital. In one of the
attacks, the bodies of 47 people shot dead by gunmen at a fake
checkpoint and dumped in a ditch were taken to a morgue in the
town of Baquba north of Baghdad.
Obeidi said a weekly average of 155 victims of political
violence were brought to the morgue over the past year.
Medical studies have suggested as many as 100 000 Iraqis
have been killed since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam
Hussein in 2003.
(Reporting by Aseel Kami)
- Reuters
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