The United Nations said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians died last month, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003 U.S. invasion. The report on civilian casualties was handed out at a U.N. news conference in Baghdad.
"Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing," the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report said, according to the AP. "Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms."
Based on figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry, the country's hospitals and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, the report said October's figure was higher than July's previously unprecedented civilian death toll of 3,590. "I think the type of violence is different in the past few months," Gianni Magazzeni, the UNAMI chief in Baghdad, told the news conference. "There was a great increase in sectarian violence in activities by terrorists and insurgents, but also by militias and criminal gangs."
The violence continued on Wednesday as at least 13 Iraqis were killed and six wounded Wednesday in attacks in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq, police said.
One of the victims was Raad Jaafar Hamadi, an Iraqi journalist working for the state-run al-Sabah newspaper in Baghdad. He was killed in a drive-by shooting Wednesday, police said.
A U.S. soldier died of a non-hostile injuries north of Baghdad on Tuesday, raising to at least 2,866 the number of U.S. servicemen who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. So far in Novemnber, 48 American service members have been killed or died.
