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UN says about 151,000 Iraqis killed by war since 2003
By Khaleej Times
09/01/08 "
Khaleej Times " -- -- NEW YORK - The World Health
Organization said Wednesday a large-scale household survey
showed an estimated 151,000 Iraqis were violently killed since
the US-led invasion of their country in March 2003 to the middle
of 2006.
WHO said the findings, published in the New England Journal of
Medicine, were the result of a wider family health survey to
provide the Iraqi government with the basis to develop and
update its health policies and services.
“Assessment of the death toll in conflict situations is
extremely difficult and household survey results have to be
interpreted with caution,” said Mohamed Ali, a WHO statistician.
“However, in the absence of comprehensive death registration and
hospital reporting, household surveys are the best we can do.”
WHO said the estimate was based on interviews in 9,345
households in nearly 1,000 neighbourhoods and villages across
Iraq, placing the number of violent deaths between 104,000 and
223,000. WHO chose to focus on the middle figure of 151,000 to
illustrate its survey.
Naeema al-Gasser, the WHO representative in Iraq, said the
estimate was three times higher than the death toll calculated
through careful screening of media reports by the Iraq Body
Count project, a joint effort of Baghdad and organizations
trying to determine the number of people killed since 2003.
But he also said the survey’s estimate was four times lower than
a small-scale household survey conducted in 2006.
The researchers said some homes cannot be visited because of
high levels of insecurity and some residents moved residence in
times of conflicts.
“The study found that violence became a leading cause of death
for Iraqi adults after March 2003 and the main cause for men
aged 15-59 years,” WHO said in a statement at UN headquarters in
New York.
It said on average 128 Iraqis have been killed a day in the
first year of the war, 115 deaths a day in the second year and
126 in the third year.
“More than half of of the violent deaths occurred in Baghdad,”
WHO said.
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