BAGHDAD: At least 85,000 people lost their lives from 2004 to 2008 during Iraq’s violent uprising, according to the first official report by the Iraqi government on the death toll since the war began.
The report, released by the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry late Tuesday as part of a larger study on the country’s human rights situation, said 85,694 people were killed and 147,195 were wounded from 2004-08.
Iraq’s death toll continued to climb on Wednesday when three near simultaneous blasts struck the southern city of Karbala. At least six people were killed, police and medical officials said. They said at least 40 people have been wounded in the attacks.
The Iraqi death toll has been a hotly disputed subject and critics on both sides of the political spectrum have accused the other side of manipulating the death numbers to sway public opinion. As Iraq became increasingly violent following the 2003 US-led invasion, it also became increasingly difficult to independently track such figures on a wide scale.
The report was based on death certificates issued by the Health Ministry and constitutes the first official finding by a government ministry on the death toll since the war begun in 2003.
Statistics for 2003 have been extremely difficult to obtain as there was no functioning Iraqi government during that time and the interim Iraqi government was not seated until mid-2004.
The report described the years that followed the US-led invasion, which toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, as extremely violent years. “Through the terrorist attacks like explosions, assassinations, kidnappings and forced displacements, the outlawed groups have created these terrible figures, which represent a big challenge for the rule of law and for the Iraqi people,” it said.
The report also breaks down some specific numbers, saying 1,279 children and 2,334 women were killed. It also puts the death toll of the university professors at 263, judges at 21, lawyers 95 and journalists at 269 — some of the professions specifically targeted as the country descended into chaos.
The toll also included 15,000 unidentified bodies that were not claimed by their families and buried in special cemeteries.
Gold heist
Gunmen killed at least seven people and wounded 10 more on Wednesday in a robbery of gold shops in a northwestern district of Baghdad, hospital and security officials said.
Iraq’s government has warned of a recent spike in crime, including daring daytime bank heists and murders.
The gunmen stormed some of the gold shops in a market in Shula district, using small arms to kill a few owners then tossing grenades to make their getaway, witnesses said. “They were shooting everywhere ... there was a lot of mess,” Abu Sajad, who was wounded in the leg, said from a hospital.
