Presentation made to a symposium titled Documenting Mortality in Conflicts, organised by WHO/CRED with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and held in Brussels, 6-7 November 2008.
This slightly amended web version (published 2 February 2009) has been updated to reflect the latest statistics in the IBC database.
Example analyses of details collected for the 59,553 deaths
Jan 2006–Sep 2008
- At least 33,531 were killed by gunfire
- 1,556 were killed in 208 airstrikes
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19,413 killed by ground-attack bombs, including:
- 3,524 in 1,503 roadside bomb attacks
- 6,822 in 550 suicide attacks
- 2,717 in 765 mortar bombings
- 27,002 bodies were found (most after being shot)
Above are some examples of those details being put to analytical use, focusing here on the types and sub-types of weapons which killed civilians.
We can also cross-tabulate across categories with any of the other data — over location, weapons types, victim occupation and time.1
1 A forthcoming peer-reviewed article will give further examples of the uses to which such cross-tabulation of IBC's data can be put.
Such fine-grained detail gathering and analysis can be used to monitor and understand the evolving nature of the conflict, gaining insights that may otherwise remain hidden from view.