Rights Under Assault In Iraq, U.N. Unit SaysBy Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; Page A18
BAGHDAD, May 23 -- Human rights in Iraq are being "severely undermined" by growing insecurity, violence and a "breakdown of law and order" caused by militias and criminal gangs, the U.N. mission here said Tuesday.
The human rights update, issued every two months by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, cited soaring numbers of execution-style killings in Baghdad. Such slayings have increased during a surge of sectarian violence that followed the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22.
Baghdad's main morgue -- which handles only the remains of victims of violent or suspicious deaths, not including bombing victims -- issued 1,155 death certificates in April, the U.N. agency reported.
The count corroborated a statement by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who this month cited morgue figures in saying 1,091 people had been killed in April in Baghdad alone. Iraq's Shiite Muslim-controlled Health Ministry had denied the figure almost as soon as Talabani made it public, saying morgue officials had accidentally given him the wrong tally.
The morgue issued even more death certificates for killings in Baghdad in March -- 1,294, the U.N. report said. Most of the victims were shot to death.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301648.html 
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