The United Nations has said that violence in Iraq had claimed the lives of 980 Iraqis in total in December 2015. The number was up from 888 in November.
The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), announced that 506 of the 980 people killed in December were civilians, while the remaining were security forces, including Kurdish peshmerga and paramilitary troops fighting against the self-declared "Islamic State" (IS) in parts of Iraq.
The worst-affected province mentioned in the report was Baghdad with 261 people killed, followed by Ninevah province in the northwest of the country with 68 dead. Ninevah's provincial capital Mosul has been under IS control for 18 months, while the majority of the province still remains under government control.
UNAMI added that up to 124 civilians had likely been killed in Anbar province in December, but said it could not verify the numbers provided by local health officials, as large parts of the western province remained under IS control resulting in increased volatility on the ground and disruption of services.
The report also mentioned that a total of 1,244 civilians were wounded in December.
