Almost 7,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 2016

Almost 7,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed throughout 2016 as a result of continued violence and turmoil in the war-ravaged country, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said yesterday.

UNAMI revealed that their data showed that at least 6,878 civilians had been killed last year, and stressed that their figure was “to be considered as the absolute minimum” as they could not acquire reliable civilian death figures in conflict areas around the country.

Since 17 October 2016, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), allied Kurdish Peshmerga and popular Iraqi forces have been engaged in an offensive to dislodge the ISIS terorr group from the northern city of Mosul.

Apart from the Mosul offensive, the ISF has been engaged in military operations against the terror group since 2014, fighting in over a third of Iraq’s 18 provinces, including the expansive western Anbar desert.