Nearly 19,000 Iraqi civilians killed since rise of ISIL

An Iraqi security forces sniper looks through the scope of his rifle as he guards in the city of Ramadi, January 16, 2016. A UN report says nearly 19,000 civilians were killed in a 21-month period. REUTERS/Thaier Al-SudaniShow less

Geneva // Nearly 19,000 civilians have been killed in violence in Iraq over the past two years, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Describing the death toll as “staggering”, the report said more than 36,000 people had also been injured.

The dramatic increase in violence came with the rise of ISIL, which in 2014 declared a “caliphate” in a large swath of territory stretching across the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The 18,802 people killed were only from documented casualties between January 1, 2014 and October 31, 2015, and the actual numbers of dead and injured are likely far higher, according to the report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the UN human rights agency.

“These are the minimum figures ... in terms of the impact of the violence on civilians,” UNAMI chief Francesco Motta said.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein meanwhile said the toll only counted people killed in violence and did not take into account those who perished from the broader impact of conflict.

“Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq,” he said. “Countless others have died from the lack of access to basic food, water or medical care.”

Some 3.2 million people have been internally displaced in Iraq since the beginning of 2014, including more than one million school-aged children, according to the UN.

The report accused ISIL of “systematic and widespread violence and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law.”

The UN also documented violations and abuses carried out by Iraqi security forces and associated militia and other groups, including killings and abductions.

But the report gave particular attention to the atrocities committed by ISIL, detailing “numerous examples of killings ... in gruesome public spectacles, including by shooting, beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off the top of buildings.”

It also condemned reports of ISIL murdering child soldiers who tried to flee.

In one incident, on August 14, ISIL members allegedly killed 18 minors for having run away from fighting on the front line, following a ruling from an ISIL self-appointed court, the report said.

The extremists meanwhile continue “to subject women and children to sexual violence, particularly in the form of sexual slavery,” it said, adding that it believed around 3,500 people were currently being held in ISIL slavery.

“These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide,” according to the report, which was based largely on witness and victim testimony.

The experts said numerous mass graves had been discovered in Iraq, including several in areas that had been liberated from ISIL control, each containing the remains of dozens of people.

Agence France-Presse