Gary Secondino's Weblog

At least 3,240 civilian deaths were recorded by hospitals in Iraq as a result of the recent war. Associated Press reporters visited 60 of the country's largest hospitals to review those records.

Here is a list of the 3,082 civilian fatalities in key cities:

- Baghdad: 1,896 (recorded at 24 hospitals)

- Najaf: 293 (four hospitals)

- Karbala: 200 (one hospital)

- Mosul: 118 (five hospitals)

- Samawa: 112 (two hospitals)

- Nasiriyah: 145 (three hospitals)

- Fallujah: 89 (one hospital)

- Madain: 71 (one hospital)

- Diwaniya: 61 (one hospital)

- Kut: 52 (two hospitals)

- Tikrit: 45 (one hospital)

An additional 158 fatalities were scattered among many small villages and towns and cities.

In Basra, Iraq's second biggest city, hospitals issued 413 death certificates and officials estimated 85 percent were for civilians, but the hospitals did not keep daily records listing civilian or military status of casualties. The AP did not include any Basra deaths in its count.

IBC

Another group, Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of British and US academics and researchers, compiled statistics on civilian casualties from media reports and estimated that between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians died in the conflict.

Its latest report compares those figures with 14 other counts, most of them taken in Iraq, which, it says, bear out its findings.

Researchers from several groups have visited hospitals and mortuaries in Iraq and interviewed relatives of the dead; some are conducting surveys in the main cities.

Three completed studies suggest that between 1,700 and 2,356 civilians died in the battle for Baghdad alone.

John Sloboda, professor of psychology at Keele University and an IBC report author, said the studies in Iraq backed up his group's figures. "One of the things we have been criticised for is quoting journalists who are quoting other people. But what we are now finding is that whenever the teams go into Iraq and do a detailed check of the data we had through the press, not only is our data accurate but [it is] often on the low side.

"The totality is now producing an unassailable sense that there were a hell of a lot of civilian deaths in Iraq."

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Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The number of coalition troops killed since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has reached 205, a U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday.

or other accidents, Col. Rick Thomas said. Those killed in action included 56 U.S. Marines, 59 U.S. Army soldiers, a U.S. Navy sailor and 19 British servicemen.

A total of 627 service members were injured since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 20, Thomas said.

Despite the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime on April 9, U.S. troops face continued attacks, mainly in central and western Iraq. Ten soldiers have died in the past 15 days, officials said.