UN raps Iraq for holding back death toll figures

By Staff
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BAGHDAD, Apr 25 (Reuters) The United Nations rebuked Iraq's government today for refusing to disclose politically sensitive civilian casualty figures in what it described as a ''rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis''.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government has accused the UN mission in Iraq of exaggerating the death toll from sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs and banned Iraqi officials from releasing data.

In a new human rights report on Iraq, the United Nations said academics, journalists and doctors and members of Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities were increasingly being intimidated, killed or kidnapped by armed groups.

It also expressed concern about the treatment of 3,000 suspects detained in a major US-Iraqi crackdown in Baghdad. It said the government had a poor record of handling detainees.

The crackdown launched nine weeks ago is seen as a last chance to avert all-out civil war. US and Iraqi officials say civilian casualties in Baghdad are down, although the death toll in the country has risen due to a surge in car bomb attacks.

They have not released any specific figures, however, using percentages to describe any increases or decreases.

Both Maliki and US President George W Bush are under domestic pressure to show progress in the crackdown after four years of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 3,300 U.S. soldiers.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said in January that 34,452 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded in 2006. These figures were much higher than any issued by Iraqi government officials.

NO DATA In the report released today, the United Nations said it had made repeated efforts to get new figures for the first three months of 2007 but had been told by the government no data would be released.

No reason had been given.

It said Maliki's office had accused the mission of overstating the death toll figure published in January, even though ''they were in fact official figures compiled and provided by a government ministry''.

''UNAMI emphasizes again the utmost need for the Iraqi government to operate in a transparent manner and does not accept the government's suggestion that UNAMI used the mortality figures in an inappropriate fashion,'' the report said.

The only figures it received were from the Ministry of Higher Education, which said 200 academics had been killed between 2003 and March this year, while some 150 had been arrested and detained by US-led forces and Iraqi authorities.

''The apparently sectarian-motivated assassinations, kidnappings and threats to academics and teachers continued at an alarming level throughout the three months,'' it said, referring to the January to March period.

It said daily living conditions were worsening despite billions of dollars earmarked for reconstruction efforts -- an estimated 54 percent of Iraqis lived on less than a dollar a day while the unemployment rate had risen to 60 percent.

The UN mission also said it had expanded its monitoring of human rights in Kurdistan, the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq that uses its relative stability in contrast to the rest of Iraq to attract investment.

The report said hundreds of suspects were being held in detention without trial for long periods, violence against women and honour killings were on the rise, and Kurdistan's government was becoming more intolerant of the media.

REUTERS LPB PM1335

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