The United Nations has some grim news on Iraq this morning: It says at least 1,075 people were killed in June as Sunni militants overtook some significant cities in the country.
Most of the deaths, the U.N. reports, were civilians. The AP adds:
"According to the U.N. human rights team in Iraq, there were at least 757 civilians killed and 599 injured in Nineveh, Diyala and Salah al-Din provinces from June 5-22, as troops led by Shiite-led government in Baghdad failed to stop the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL."'This figure — which should be viewed very much as a minimum — includes a number of verified summary executions and extra-judicial killings of civilians, police, and soldiers who were hors (de) combat,' said U.N. human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville, using the French term for soldiers who have signaled they are no longer combatants."The Iraq team said another 318 people were killed and 590 injured during the same time in Baghdad and areas in the south, many of them from least six separate vehicle-borne bombs. It also is trying to verify what Colville called 'a number of alleged human rights violations that have been taking place in Iraq' since [ISIS'] advances in early June."
There are two other pieces of bad news about the country:
-- The U.N. says it is worried that children are being used in the conflict. In a press release, it reports that the office of the Special Representative of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for Children and Armed Conflict "confirmed that incidents of underage boys being armed, manning checkpoints, and in some cases used as suicide bombers, have been documented."
-- CNN reports that the current conflict in Iraq has displaced about half a million people. In essence, the network reports it has doubled the country's displaced population.
"More than 1.1 million people — nearly one out of 30 — in Iraq are now displaced," CNN reports.
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