Large bombings claim ever more lives

2007 sees the worst bombings ever – and more of them

4 Oct 2007

Iraq Body Count’s research shows that 27,000 civilian deaths from violence were reported in 2006. This represents a huge increase compared to preceding years: 14,000 killed in 2005, 10,500 in 2004 and just under 12,000 in 2003 (7,000 during the actual war/invasion, and another 5,000 during the ‘peace’ that followed).

Early indications are that roughly 20,000 violent civilian deaths will be recorded for the first 9 months of 2007. By year’s end, 2007 looks to be the second-worst calendar year for violence in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, trailing only behind 2006, and still almost twice as deadly for civilians as the first year.

One measure by which 2007 quickly exceeded 2006 was in major ground-based bombing attacks which killed more than 50 civilians (and sometimes far more). Throughout all of 2006 there were 12 such attacks. Between January and April 2007 there were already 13. As of this writing, there have been 20 such attacks in 2007, claiming well over 2,000 civilian lives, with the worst-ever of these attacks occurring in August and killing over 500.

Altogether, there have been 49 of these attacks since 2003, killing 4,454 to 4,632 civilians, and probably more.

The death tolls from these large-scale incidents are well-reported: on average, each of the incidents listed here received 33 independent media reports, including updates to the death toll, ranging up to 92 reports for the largest incident. Even so, these attacks leave many wounded, some of whom may have died from their injuries after the last of these reports were collected. This makes it likely that more civilians may have died from them than the 4,454 to 4,362 recorded here.

The following table charts the 49 incidents recorded between March 2003 and September 2007: