[JURIST] The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq [official website] said [press release] Tuesday that 1,531 Iraqi citizens and 886 members of the Iraqi Security forces [official website] have been killed in June, along with many more injured in Iraq. According to the report, Baghdad was the worst affected area with 1,090 civilian casualties. The special representative for the UN Secretary General for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov issued a statement regarding the casualties:

The staggering number of civilian casualties in one month points to the urgent need for all to ensure that civilians are protected. As large parts of the country remain under the control of ISIL and armed groups, it is imperative that national leaders work together to foil attempts to destroy the social fabric of Iraqi society. What can be achieved through a Constitutional political process cannot be achieved through an exclusively military response. Security must be restored, but the root causes of violence must be addressed.

In Anbar province, which was excluded from the casualty figures, 244 people were killed and 588 injured.

Iraq has been facing violence since the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) [BBC backgrounder] started its insurgency in 2013. In June Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported that more than 160 men were executed by ISIS [JURIST report] between June 11 and 14. Also last month the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed grave concern [JURIST report] about the human rights abuses that are occurring in Iraq as a result of the ISIS insurgency. In February HRW stated that the killing [JURIST report] of four Iraqi SWAT members by ISIS amounted to crimes against humanity.