In armed conflicts, the civilian casualty ratio (also civilian death ratio, civilian-combatant ratio, etc.) is the ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties, or total casualties. The measurement can apply either to casualties inflicted by or to a particular belligerent, casualties inflicted in one aspect or arena of a conflict or to casualties in the conflict as a whole. Casualties usually refer to both dead and injured. In some calculations, deaths resulting from famine and epidemics are included.
Starting in the 1980s, it has often been claimed that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars are civilians,[1][2][3][4] repeated in academic publications as recently as 2014.[5] These claims, though widely believed and correct regarding some wars, do not hold up as a generalization across the overwhelming majority of wars, particularly in the case of wars such as those in former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan which are central to the claims.[6] Some of the citations can be traced back to a 1991 monograph from Uppsala University[7] which includes refugees and internally displaced persons as casualties. Other authors cite Ruth Leger Sivard's 1991 monograph in which the author states "In the decade of the 1980s, the proportion of civilian deaths jumped to 74 percent of the total and in 1990 it appears to have been close to 90 percent."[8]
A wide-ranging study of civilian war deaths from 1700 to 1987 by William Eckhardt states:
On the average, half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians, only some of whom were killed by famine associated with war...The civilian percentage share of war-related deaths remained at about 50% from century to century. (p. 97)[9]
- ^ Kahnert, M., D. Pitt, et al., Eds. (1983). Children and War: Proceedings of Symposium at Siuntio Baths, Finland, 1983. Geneva and Helsinki, Geneva International Peace Research Institute, IPB and Peace Union of Finland, p. 5, which states: "Of the human victims in the First World War only 5% were civilians, in the Second World War already 50%, in Vietnam War between 50 - 90 % and according to some information in Lebanon 97%. It has been appraised that in a conventional war in Europe up to 99% of the victims would be civilians."
- ^ Graça Machel, "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children", Report of the expert of the Secretary-General, 26 Aug 1996, p. 9.
- ^ Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 107.
- ^ Howard Zinn, Moises Samam, Gino Strada. Just war, Charta, 2005, p. 38.
- ^ James, Paul (2014). "Faces of Globalization and the Borders of States: From Asylum Seekers to Citizens". Citizenship Studies. 18 (2): 219. doi:10.1080/13621025.2014.886440. S2CID 144816686.
- ^ Adam Roberts, "Lives and Statistics: Are 90% of War Victims Civilians?", Survival, London, vol. 52, no. 3, June–July 2010, pp. 115–35. Print edition ISSN 0039-6338. Online ISSN 1468-2699.
- ^ Ahlstrom, C. and K.-A. Nordquist (1991). Casualties of conflict: report for the world campaign for the protection of victims of war. Uppsala, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University.
- ^ Sivard, R. L. (1991). World Military and Social Expenditures 1991. Washington DC, World Priorities, Inc. Vol. 14, pp 22-25.
- ^ Eckhardt, W. "Civilian deaths in wartime." Security Dialogue 20(1): 89-98. Also at [1]
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