733 killed in Iraq violence in January: UN

A total of 733 people were killed in violent attacks in Iraq in January, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has revealed.

A total of 618 civilians and 115 members of the security forces were killed and 1,229 were wounded in terrorist and violent acts in January across Iraq, Xinhua quoted UNAMI as saying in a statement Saturday.

It excluded the casualties in Anbar province where fierce clashes flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi in late December last year.

“I am deeply worried about the humanitarian situation of thousands of displaced families and particularly of those stranded in Fallujah. They lacked water, fuel, food, medicine and other basic commodities,” UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov said in the statement.

Last week, the UN refugee agency said that more than 65,000 people had fled the conflict in the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq’s central Anbar province over the past week. More than 140,000 people have fled since the fighting began at the end of 2013.

Iraq’s Sunnis have been carrying out a year-long protest, accusing the Shiite-led government of marginalising them and its Shiite-dominated security forces of indiscriminately arresting, torturing and killing their sons.

  733 killed, Iraq violence in January, UN