Tri-Service

UN Report Reveals "Staggering" Civilian Death Toll In Iraq

A new report has unveiled a "staggering" civilian death toll in Iraq, with nearly 19,000 people killed in less than two years.

At least 18,802 civilians were killed and another 36,245 wounded between January 1 2014 and October 31 2015, according to the UN report, although it added that the actual figures could be even higher.

Over 250,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the conflict broke out in Syria in 2011, meanwhile.

The report details killings by the Islamic State group including by shooting and beheading, as well as by being burned alive or thrown off buildings.

More:Why Does Islamic State Hate Being Called 'Daesh'?

Some 3.2 million people are said to have been displaced internally in Iraq over the same period, while the figure in Syria is currently estimated to be 6.5 million, with over 4.6 million others have fled to neighbouring countries - including almost 245,000 to Iraq.

The report also stated that the Islamic State group is believed to be holding approximately 3,500 people, predominantly women and children from the country's Yazidi minority, captive as slaves in Iraq.

IS swept across northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014, plunging the country into its worst political and security crisis since the withdrawal of US troops in 2011.

Another 800 to 900 children were abducted from Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, for religious and military training, the report said, while a number of IS child soldiers were killed by the extremists when they tried to flee fighting in the western Anbar province.

The report said such acts are "systematic and widespread... abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law", adding:

"These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide."

Iraqi forces have advanced against the IS group on a number of fronts in recent months and driven them out of the western city of Ramadi.

But U.N. envoy Jan Kubis said in a statement that "despite their steady losses to pro-government forces, the scourge of ISIL continues to kill, maim and displace Iraqi civilians in the thousands and to cause untold suffering."

UN human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein, meanwhile, said the civilian death toll may be considerably higher. He said in a statement:

"Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq."

He added that the report "starkly illustrates what Iraqi refugees are attempting to escape when they flee to Europe and other regions. This is the horror they face in their homelands".

IS has set up a self-styled caliphate in the territories under its control, which it governs with a harsh and violent interpretation of Islamic law.