Because uncorroborated by a second press report, the totals for x492 are currently
marked as provisional. However, their consistency with multiple earlier reports
and basis in information from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, as reported
to and published by the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN),
gives high confidence in them.
Coming as they do around a week after fighting had ceased, the IRIN/IRCS-reported
figures of 65 dead and 85 wounded can be held to supersede earlier hospital-based
reports that were provided over the days during and immediately after the
battle, when bodies were still being recovered from the rubble. They also
trump uncorroborated round-number estimates provided by officials while the
situation was still unclear.
As the report states that the 65 dead were "mainly civilians," we
have interpreted this as a range from 60-80%, which provides the minimum and
maximum figures entered in the database for this entry.
We continue to seek further information to confirm or update these figures.