The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) criticized the Iraqi government yesterday for blocking access to casualty figures from the war-torn country over the past three months.
UNAMI, in its quarterly report on the human rights situation in Iraq, said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government had stopped providing the figures and had accused the UN of exaggerating figures in an earlier report.
In a report on Jan. 16, UNAMI said more than 34,400 people had died in the daily acts of violence across the country last year.
"The Prime Minister's Office told UNAMI that the mortality figures contained in the report were exaggerated, although they were in fact figures compiled and provided by a government ministry," UNAMI said yesterday.
It said the figures released in January were based on information provided by Iraq's various ministries, including the health ministry.
"It was a matter a regret that the Iraqi government did not provide UNAMI with access to the ministry of health's overall mortality figures for the reporting period [Jan. 1 to March 31]," the UN agency said.
"UNAMI emphasizes again the utmost need for the Iraqi government to operate in a transparent manner and does not accept the government's suggestion that UNAMI used the mortality figures in an inappropriate fashion," it said.
UNAMI said repeated efforts to procure the mortality figures had failed.
"Evidence which cannot be numerically substantiated in this report nonetheless show that the high level of violence continued throughout the reporting period," the report said.
"In February and March, sectarian violence claimed the lives of large numbers of civilians ... in both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods," it added.
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