The two tables above and below show IraqSlogger's latest exclusive data, back by popular demand, for prices of key fuels and household staples in nine different areas of the Iraqi capital.

Prices for consumer fuels, in the table above, are those charged by unofficial black-market fuel sellers who distribute fuel outside the official state-run network of fueling stations, which suffers from chronic shortages and long queuing.

The fuels in question are auto fuel, kerosene, used especially in home heating, diesel fuel, and cooking gas, which is a form of blended butane sold in refillable canisters and used in food preparation.

Street prices for staple fuels are often far higher than the official state-set rates. Auto fuel, for example, retails in official stations for 400 Iraqi dinars/liter, but is selling for well above that across the capital.

All data presented are for the week ending October 13.

The table below shows the latest prices gathered by IraqSlogger's sources for key household commodities in the nine different districts, including two kinds of staple breads, khubuz and samoun, and a carton of Marlboro cigarettes.

Stay tuned for more exclusive price check data from Iraq.

2,417 Iraqis were victims of violent acts during the month of September, according to statistics released in Arabic by an Iraqi human rights monitor. That figure is down from the 3,387 acts of violence recorded by the group in August.

The non-governmental Constitutional Freedoms and Rights Observer (CFRO) records “acts of violence” throughout Iraq each month, which it defines as:

• Deaths in explosions (Car bombs, IEDs, Suicide bombers).
• Victims wounded in explosions.
• Discover of unidentified victims’ corpses.
• Assassinations.
• Abductions.
• Arrests.

CFRO writes in Arabic that the September figures represent a “noted decline” over previous months and “the largest drop in acts of violence since January of 2008.”

The watchdog does note an increase in assassinations and abductions, the former especially concentrated in Ninewa, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, and Wasit Provinces, while abductions were concentrated in Diyala, Kirkuk, and Anbar provinces.

The table above summarizes the data released by CFRO for September 2008. CFRO writes that it did not record any victims of violence in Muthanna, Najaf, Irbil, Dahuk or Suleimaniya provinces for September.

In spite of the relative decline in violence in September, CFRO lists several outstanding concerns, translated here:

• Armed groups assassinated a number of citizens, including Police and Army troops, religious leaders, members of the Sahwa, and journalists, as well as civilians including a 9-month pregnant woman, a football coach, a student at the College of Arts as well as families in their entirety. These acts were concentrated in Ninewa and Diyala Provinces.
• Armed groups assassinated an advisor to the Ministry of Defense, an official in the Ministry of Transport, an official in the Council of Ministers, a deputy governor of Ninewa Province, an official in a civil society organization.
• Armed groups deployed silenced pistols, adhesive bombs stuck to the victim’s car, storming the victims’ house, and assassinations in the street as murder tactics.
• Armed groups conducted attacks on police checkpoints, on Sahwa members, on Pesh Merga stations, as well as opening fire on a group of young men, and on a gathering of civilians. Armed groups murdered shop owners inside their stores, and opened fire on a car carrying civilians.
• Armed groups raided a publishing house and opened fire on workers there, and threatened a director of the Ninewa municipality and its workers, and ignited a garbage truck belonging to the municipality.
• Armed groups used rocket-propelled grenades in attacks on a police checkpoint.
• Armed groups threw an explosive device amid a group of children.

The CFRO also expresses its concern over haphazard gunfire and killing of civilians on the part of Iraqi and American forces. It lists the following events in September:

• An Iraqi solder opened gunfire randomly leading to the killing and injuring of several civilians.
• The guards of the Minstry of Migration and Displacement opened fire randomly.
• American forces killed a doctor.
• American forces opened fire randomly after one of their patrols was struck by an IED explosion.
• American forces struck a civilian house with gunfire from a helicopter.

Unfortunately, CFRO does not provide specific information for each incident listed above.

IOM/MoDM.

Click to enlarge.

Iraqis who have returned from displacement face intense unemployment and health care difficulties, according to a survey of over two thousand returnee families released by the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration (MoDM) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The MoDM/IOM has released its monthly data resulting from a survey of 2,102 returnee families in a report entitled “Returnee Monitoring and Needs Assessments.” In addition to the government’s latest figures on returnees, the report includes an extensive tabulation of the data resulting from that survey, conducted between December and August.

In 56 percent of households surveyed, the head of household was unemployed, according to the MoDM/IOM report. The unemployment figure jumps to 97 percent in female-headed households, which account for 12 percent of the sample.

Moreover, only 34 percent of households polled reported “regular” access to the Public Distribution System (PDS), the government ration of staple foods, while 58 percent reported “irregular” PDS access.

83 percent of heads of household reported that their children had access to schools, but only 45 percent said that they could access health care. Fully 98 percent of returnee households in Anbar Province reported that they were unable to access health care.

As the graph above shows, returnees in different provinces reported different rates of return to their original houses, ranging from all respondents in Karbala province, to as few as 25 percent of respondents in Salah al-Din province. Overall, 86 percent of all surveyed households reported that they were able to live in their original house.

The MoDM identifies 21,066 returnee families living in Iraq, estimated at 126,396 individuals. “Of them 2,309 families (11%) are returnees from abroad and the other 18,757 (84%) are returnee families from internal displacement in Iraq,” the report states. Relief organizations estimate that there are over four million displaced Iraqis, living inside and outside the country.

Click here for the full report: MODM_sept08.pdf

See here for all of IraqSlogger's coverage of refugee-related issues.