Tara Fares, 22, who won maid of Miss Iraq in 2014 and Miss Baghdad in 2015, was shot dead on Thursday by unidentified gunmen in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior said.

One of Baghdad hospitals received Fares' body which suffered three bullet wounds.

Fares, currently a model, used to live between Turkey and Iraq and recently lives in United Arab Emirates.

She won ex-maid of Miss Iraq in 2014 beauty pageant, and the next year, she was chosen Miss Baghdad at the beauty pageant which took place in western Baghdad in 2015.

The ministry told Xinhua that it launched an investigation into the incident and is now interrogating a person who was accompanying her during the attack.

The security situation in Baghdad has been dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist Islamic State militants across the country in late 2017, but violent attacks occur from time to time.