Structure and use of the report
The report’s first chapter provides information on the security situation, including information on political developments in the country, the current security situation, impacts of the security situation on civilian population at national level. Sub-chapter 1.4 includes a governorate-level description of the security situation, except for the southern governorates and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq sub-chapters, where the information has been clustered. Each governorate chapter includes a brief description of the governorate, actors involved in the conflict, recent security trends, including information on civilian casualties, civilian infrastructure impacted and the existence of unexploded ordnances (UXO) and Explosive Remnants of War (ERW), as well as information on displacement and return.
The governorate chapters of the report follow the order: Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa, Salah al-Din, Southern governorates, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Dohuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah). At the beginning of May 2025, Halabja officially became Iraq’s 19th governorate, separating it from Sulaymaniyah governorate.19 However, for the purposes of this report, data on Halabja is clustered with Sulaymaniyah governorate, as the majority of sources did not treat it as a separate governorate, with the exception of UCDP in the section on civilian casualties. Furthermore, the administrative change only applied to the last three months of the 12-month reference period (see section 1.4.8). For organisational purposes only, this report groups together several governorates under ‘southern’ chapter: Babil, Basrah, Thi-Qar, Kerbala, Missan, Muthanna, Najaf, Qadissiya, and Wassit.
This is followed by Chapter 2 which is divided into ten sub-chapters. First sub-chapter outlines the general human rights situation in the country. Each sub-chapter contains information on the general situation of selected groups of individuals or profiles within the Iraqi society as well as their treatment by state, state-affiliated actors and non-state actors. For better readability, cross-links among the sub-chapters of the report are provided where information regarding one or more profiles overlaps with information related to other profiles covered in this report. Thereafter, chapter 3 outlines the humanitarian and socio-economic situation, including updates on requirements needed to enter and settle in some governorates/cities, and the requirements needed to access civil documentation and services.