More than 1,000 killed in Iraq violence in May - U.N.

Mourners pray over the coffin of a victim killed in one of Monday's bomb attacks, during a funeral in Najaf, around 160 km (99 miles) south of Baghdad May 20, 2013. REUTERS/Ahmad Mousa

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than 1,000 people were killed in attacks in Iraq during May in the worst spike in violence since the country's sectarian civil war five years ago, according to the United Nations on Saturday.

Since a surge in attacks erupted in April nearly 2,000 people have died as al Qaeda and Sunni Islamist insurgents step up a campaign to provoke the kind of all-out inter-communal conflict that killed tens of thousands in 2006-2007.