BAGHDAD — An Iraqi sheik carried his infant grandson’s tightly wrapped body, staring ahead with a blank gaze as men behind him bore the coffin of the baby’s mother during their funeral Tuesday, a day after they were killed in a wave of bombings in Baghdad.
The heartbreaking image, captured in an Associated Press photo, illustrates the human tragedy behind the numbers as the death toll mounts to levels not seen in half a decade amid a new surge in sectarian bloodshed nearly two years after the U.S. withdrew from the country.
The U.N. mission in Iraq said Tuesday that 979 people died in September, most civilians caught up in the violence by insurgents led by al-Qaeda in Iraq who appear determined to rekindle the tensions between Sunnis and Shiites that nearly pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-07.
The report said the worst-affected part was the capital, Baghdad, where 418 people were killed in September.
