In early 2006 IBC was invited to introduce its work at a Working Group Meeting on methods used by researchers to estimate armed conflict deaths (organised by the Small Arms Survey, Geneva, 17 Feb 2006).
Well-received by experts at the meeting, On Iraq Body Count summarised the project’s key features and innovations.
“The Killers: Fact Sheet 3”
What weaponry was used?
Children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices, but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance.
| Weapons types | Adult | Child | % Child |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explosives involved | 1,637 | 852 | 34.2% |
| Aircraft involved | 542 | 512 | 48.6% |
| Unexploded ordnance alone | 27 | 75 | 73.5% |
| Small arms alone | 1,220 | 82 | 6.3% |
3.1 Analytic potentials of the data (cont.)
The Iraq conflict has gone through many stages, and has involved many different kinds of warfare, from massive aerial bombardment through to hand-held gunfire. One of our analyses in the 2005 dossier, from which the table above is extracted, analysed incidents according to the type of weaponry involved. This showed that children were most at risk from aerial bombardment, where 48% of victims for whom the age was know were children.