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UN envoy hails liberation of Iraqi town from Islamic State

Xinhua, April 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

The UN secretary-general's special representative for Iraq, Jan Kubis, welcomed the recent victories of the Iraqi security forces in liberating the town of Tikrit from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated armed groups, a UN spokesman told reporters here Wednesday.

Calling it "a victory for all the Iraqi people", Kubis said the United Nations stands ready to assist the provincial and national authorities in responding to the needs of the thousands of displaced, according to deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq at a daily news briefing here.

The top UN official in Iraq said civilians' safety and security must be protected in line with fundamental human rights principles and humanitarian law, while calling on the government to ensure that all Tikrit inhabitants who fled from ISIL can safely return to their homes and provide without delay the much needed humanitarian assistance.

The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), headed by Kubis, also released its casualty figures for March, reporting that a total of 997 Iraqis were killed and another 2,172 were wounded in acts of terrorism and violence in the month. The number of civilians killed was 729 and the number of civilians wounded was 1, 785.

Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, was the worst affected governorate with 1,290 civilian casualties.

Amid ongoing fighting between Iraqi government forces and ISIL and continuing sectarian tensions across society, the Middle East country is facing immense security challenges.

Iraq is also being tested by fiscal constraints and the UNAMI is currently working actively with the authorities to set up a Recovery and Reconstruction fund, while the challenge posed by supporting persons displaced by conflict also remains huge.

Overall, 5.2 million people need humanitarian assistance, of whom 2.25 million are displaced and 235,000 are refugees from Syria. The population of the Kurdistan Region have increased by 30 percent due to the influx. Endite