July bloodiest month in Iraq in 5 years, UN report finds

The death toll in Iraq topped 1,000 in July, the most violence recorded in a single month in five years, a U.N. official said Thursday. A report released by the U.N. mission in Baghdad said 1,057 Iraqis died last month, for a total of 4,137 civilians killed so far this year, the BBC reported. Some 9,865 more Iraqis were wounded in the first seven months of 2013, the report said. In releasing the report, U.N. Iraq representative Gyorgy Busztin said the effects of violence were still "disturbingly high" and called on Iraqi leaders to "take immediate and decisive action to stop the senseless bloodshed." Some 928 civilians, including 204 civilian police, were killed in July, the report said, and 2,109 more were inured, including 338 civilian police. Causalities among Iraqi security forces numbered 129 killed and 217 injured. The report found Baghdad was the city with the highest level of violence, followed by the provinces of Salahuddin, Ninewa, Diyala and Kirkuk. A number of those regions are populated primarily by Sunni, who are opposed to the Shiite-led government.