Battle-related deaths (number of people)

License Type open

Indicator Name Battle-related deaths (number of people)
Short definition Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts
between warring parties, usually involving armed forces.
This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla
activities, and all kinds of bombardments of military
units, cities, and villages, etc. All deaths--military as well
as civilian--incurred in such situations, are counted as
battle-related deaths.
Long definition Battle-related deaths are deaths in battle-related conflicts
between warring parties in the conflict dyad (two conflict
units that are parties to a conflict). Typically, battle-
related deaths occur in warfare involving the armed forces
of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield
fighting, guerrilla activities, and all kinds of
bombardments of military units, cities, and villages, etc.
The targets are usually the military itself and its
installations or state institutions and state representatives,
but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form
of civilians being killed in crossfire, in indiscriminate
bombings, etc. All deaths--military as well as civilian--
incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related
deaths.
Source Uppsala Conflict Data Program,
http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/.
Topic Public Sector: Conflict & fragility
Periodicity Annual
Aggregation method Sum
Statistical concept and During warfare, targets are usually the military and its
methodology installations or state institutions and state representatives,
but there is often substantial collateral damage of civilians
killed in crossfire, indiscriminate bombings, and other
military activities. All deaths - civilian as well as military
- incurred in such situations are counted as battle-related
deaths.
Development relevance According to the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence
and Development, more than 526,000 people die each
year because of the violence associated with armed
conflict and large- and small-scale criminality. Recovery
and rebuilding can take years, and the challenges are
numerous: infrastructure to be rebuilt, persistently high
crime, widespread health problems, education systems in
 disrepair, and unexploded ordnance to be cleared. Most
countries emerging from conflict lack the capacity to
rebuild the economy. Thus, capacity building is one of the
first tasks for restoring growth and is linked to building
peace and creating the conditions that lead to sustained
poverty reduction. UN Peacekeepers serve in some of the
most difficult and dangerous situations around the globe.
United Nations Peacekeeping force, comprised of
civilian, police and military personnel, helps countries
torn by conflict create the conditions for lasting peace. In
addition to maintaining peace and security, peacekeepers
are increasingly charged with assisting in political
processes; reforming judicial systems; training law
enforcement and police forces; disarming and
reintegrating former combatants; supporting the return of
internally displaced persons and refugees. The World
Bank and other international development agencies can
help, but countries with fragile situations have to build
their own institutions tailored to their own needs.
Peacekeeping operations in post-conflict situations have
been effective in reducing the risks of reversion to
conflict.
Limitations and exceptions An armed conflict is a contested incompatibility that
concerns a government or territory where the use of
armed force between two parties (one of them the
government) results in at least 25 battle related deaths in a
calendar year. Data is from the Uppsala Conflict Data
Program (UCDP) Battle-Related Deaths Dataset which
focuses on the incompatibility and lists the country, as
well as the battle location and territory where battle-
related deaths are reported. When more than one country
is listed in the dataset, the assignment of battle-related
deaths is determined by the battle location. User can refer
to the ICDP dataset where they have split the deaths for
the actual location of the fighting when the fighting
occurred on the disputed border.
Series
Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people)
License Type open
Indicator Name Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people)
Long definition Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful
homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic
disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over
land resources, intergang violence over turf or control,
and predatory violence and killing by armed groups.
Intentional homicide does not include all intentional
killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the
killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit
homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually
committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several
hundred members and is thus usually excluded.
Source UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide
Statistics database.
Topic Public Sector: Conflict & fragility
Periodicity Annual
Aggregation method Weighted average
Statistical concept and The definitions used to produce data are in line with the
methodology homicide definition used in the UNODC Homicide
Statistics dataset. On the basis of these selection criteria
and subject to data availability, a long and continuous
time series including recent data on homicide counts and
rates has been identified or created at country level. Data
included in the dataset correspond to the original value
provided by the source of origin, since no statistical
procedure or modeling was used to change collected
values or to create new or revised figures. The intentional
killing of a human being by another is the ultimate crime.
Its indisputable physical consequences manifested in the
form of a dead body also make it the most categorical and
calculable. All existing data sources on intentional
homicides, both at national and international level, stem
from either criminal justice or public health systems. In
the former case, data are generated by law enforcement or
criminal justice authorities in the process of recording and
investigating a crime event. In the latter, data are
produced by health authorities certifying the cause of
death of an individual. Criminal justice data were
collected through UNODC regular collections of crime
data from Member States, through publicly available data
produced by national government sources and from data
compiled by other international and regional agencies,
 including from Interpol, Eurostat, the Organization of
American States and UNICEF. Public health data on
homicides were mainly derived from databases on deaths
by cause disseminated by the World Health Organization
(WHO). The inclusion of recent data was given a higher
priority in the selection process than the length of the time
series (number of years covered). An analysis of official
reports and research literature is regularly carried out to
verify homicide data used by government agencies and
the scientific community. As a result of the data
collection and validation process, in many countries
several homicide datasets have become available from
different or multiple sources. Therefore, data series have
been selected to provide the most appropriate reference
counts.
Development relevance In some regions, organized crime, drug trafficking and the
violent cultures of youth gangs are predominantly
responsible for the high levels of homicide. There has
been a sharp increase in homicides in some countries,
particularly in Central America, are making the activities
of organized crime and drug trafficking more visible.
Greater use of firearms is often associated with the illicit
activities of organized criminal groups, which are often
linked to drug trafficking. Knowledge of the patterns and
causes of violent crime are crucial to forming preventive
strategies. Young males are the group most affected by
violent crime in all regions, particularly in the Americas.
Yet women of all ages are the victims of intimate partner
and family-related violence in all regions and countries.
Indeed, in many of them, it is within the home where a
woman is most likely to be killed. Data on intentional
homicides are from the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime (UNODC), which uses a variety of national
and international sources on homicides - primarily
criminal justice sources as well as public health data from
the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan
American Health Organization - and the United Nations
Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal
Justice Systems to present accurate and comparable
statistics. The UNODC defines homicide as "unlawful
death purposefully inflicted on a person by another
person." This definition excludes deaths arising from
armed conflict.
Limitations and exceptions Statistics reported to the United Nations in the context of
its various surveys on crime levels and criminal justice
trends are incidents of victimization that have been
reported to the authorities in any given country. That
means that this data is subject to the problems of accuracy
of all official crime data. The survey results provide an
overview of trends and interrelationships between various
parts of the criminal justice system to promote informed
decision-making in administration, nationally and
internationally. The degree to which different societies
apportion the level of culpability to acts resulting in death
is also subject to variation. Consequently, the comparison
between countries and regions of "intentional homicide",
or unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by
another person, is also a comparison of the extent to
which different countries deem that a killing be classified
as such, as well as the capacity of their legal systems to
record it. Caution should therefore be applied when
evaluating and comparing homicide data.