United Nations: Violence in Iraq killed more than 12,000 civilians in 2014

At least 12,282 Iraqi civilians died from violence in the country in 2014, the United Nations reports. The death toll is the highest since 2007, officials noted.

"Yet again, the Iraqi ordinary citizen continues to suffer from violence and terrorism," Nickolay Mladenov, head of the U.N. political mission in Iraq, said in a statement reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Another 23,126 civilians were injured in Iraq in 2014, and officials said both numbers should be taken as the bare minimum — that actual death and injury tolls may be even higher. The majority of the deaths occurred in the months that Islamic State militants made pushes into larger swaths of Iraq.

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