Civilians bearing brunt of Iraq violence
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-03 08:50

Insurgency-related violence last year killed more than twice as many Iraqi civilians — 4,024 people — as Iraqi soldiers and police, according to government figures obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

And the civilian death count in the first two months of this year already stands at more than one-quarter of last year's total — due in part to sectarian violence triggered by the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine and car bombings in Shiite neighborhoods around Baghdad.

An Iraqi,left, mourns his policeman brother who was shot dead by unknown gunmen along with three other colleagues, in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 2, 2006. A bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shiite section of Baghdad and a senior Sunni leader escaped assassination as another 36 people were killed Thursday in a surge of violence that has pushed Iraq closer than ever to sectarian civil war. [AP]

The large number of civilian deaths — many in Baghdad, where 25 percent of the population lives — has created a climate of fear where parents are afraid to send their children to school, women spend their days huddled inside their homes, and husbands send wives and children abroad.

Figures compiled by the Health Ministry put the civilian death toll for 2005 at 4,024. The ministry's civilian death count for the first two months of this year is 1,093.

Death tolls for the police and army are compiled by the ministries of Interior and Defense. Their figures show that 1,695 police and soldiers were killed last year. Most of the victims — 1,222 — were from the ranks of the police.

That pattern has continued through January and February of this year — when 155 policemen and 44 soldiers died. Iraqi soldiers as a rule have better body armor and make better use of armored vehicles. Many Iraqi police patrol the dangerous streets of Baghdad and other cities in cars and pickup trucks without armor.

There is no way to verify the figures independently. In a dangerous country as large as California, journalists rely on figures provided by local police, hospitals and the Interior Ministry.