By IRNA
Baghdad : The toll of civilian deaths in Iraq has soared in recent weeks as Iraqi and American security forces carried offensive on Basra and Sadr City, according to Interior Ministry figures.
The battles reached their peak after Iraqi forces began an assault on Basra one week ago; that fighting has dropped off since Sunday, when Moqtada Sadr, Iraqi anti-occupation campaigner asked Mahdi Army to lay down its arms and made a series of demands of the Iraqi government.
The new statistics showing an increase in civilian deaths due to armed clashes, assassinations and sectarian killings are consistent with trends documented by other agencies and groups monitoring the violence in Iraq.
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After a period of rapidly improving security last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, anecdotal reports suggest that the rate of violent incidents is up all over the country.
Figures obtained from the Iraqi Interior Ministry on Tuesday put the number of civilians recorded as killed in violence in Baghdad during March at approximately 472, the largest number since approximately 543 such deaths were recorded in September.
The civilian numbers are not exact, in part because they include a category for “unidentified bodies,” and some of them may be so burned or mutilated that uniforms, identification cards or other information that could link a corpse to the military are not available.
That death toll is 43 percent higher than February’s, and almost double that of the lowest point in the past six months, in December.
But these latest figures are far lower than those during the height of sectarian violence in Iraq in late 2006 and early 2007.
As battles were waged in recent weeks between the Mahdi Army and security forces, the ministry’s countrywide death toll – which includes civilians, Iraqi Army, police and other security forces, like border guards – rose 55 percent in March, to 2,012 deaths, compared with February’s.
In the streets themselves, Iraqis continued to venture out warily after days of fighting had kept them huddled in their homes.
In Basra, as Iraqi Army and police forces began dragging away vehicles damaged and burned in the fighting, roughly half the shops in the city had reopened, but tensions remained high.
After Sadr’s statements caused the Mahdi Army to melt away on the streets, Iraqi security forces appeared to step up their raids on those they regard as renegade militiamen, a move that could endanger what is clearly a fragile truce.