Global civilian casualties from explosive weapons rise for third year running
London, 22 June 2015
New data released today by UK-NGO Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) shows that global civilian deaths and injuries from explosive weaponsin 2014 have gone up for a third consecutive year.
In 2014, 41,847 people were killed or injured by explosive weapons – of these 78% were civilians (32,662). In populated areas civilians made up 92% of casualties.
These numbers reflect a 52% rise from the numbers of civilians who were hurt or killed in 2011, when AOAV started its explosive weapon monitor (and when 21,499 civilian casualties were recorded).
In the report “Explosive States” AOAV analysed the global harm from the use of explosive weapons like missiles, artillery and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
KEY FINDINGS
Civilian casualties from aerial explosive weapons in 2014 almost tripled from 2013 levels (5,868 up from 2,012).
There were almost twice as many civilian casualties from barrel bombs in 2014 as in 2013 (1,068 up from 571).
There was a 53% rise in civilian harm caused by mortars in 2014 from the year before - with 3,000 civilian casualties in 15 countries.
Suicide bombs caused 5,501 civilian casualties in 2014 in 17 countries.
State forces caused 28% of civilian casualties in 2014, up from 11% in 2013.
Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Nigeria and Pakistan were the worst places to be a civilian. Over ten thousand civilian casualties from explosive weapons were recorded in Iraq for the second year in a row, as ISIS took towns and cities across the country.
Iain Overton, Director of Investigations at AOAV, said of the findings: “This is the third consecutive year that we have seen an increase in civilian deaths and injuries from explosive weapons. With civilians bearing the brunt of explosive weapon harm in Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan the question has to be: ‘How many more will have to die before states agree to end the use of explosive weapons in populated areas?”
“But it is not just governments causing this harm,” Overton said, “Last year the biggest single bombing we recorded was a massive IED attack at a mosque in northern Nigeria. These weapons are killing and injuring civilians the world over, and collective action is the only way we are going to reverse the trends of recent years.”
The lead researcher on the project, Robert Perkins, said: “State use of heavy explosive weapons shot up last year. More governments were using more bombs, and all too often they are trying to take out targets within populated areas. Our data has shown year after year that this practice kills and injures civilians far too often for it to be chalked up as unavoidable, isolated mistakes.”
The CEO of AOAV, Steven Smith, responded to the data by saying: “Our findings show that bombing and shelling is not just a problem of the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s one that hits us in our homes, our markets, our mosques and our schools. The use of heavy explosive weapons in populated areas is unacceptable, but all too predictable.”
The full report can be downloaded here:
ENDS
FOR EDITORS To find more about AOAV’s work on explosive weapons, please go to www.aoav.org.uk. AOAV’s report is drawn from almost 500 different English-language media sources. It captures only worldwide explosive violence as reported in the news media. As such it presents only a conservative estimate of the real extent of suffering caused by explosive violence.
AOAV is a founding member of the International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW), a coalition of NGOs working to prevent the suffering caused by explosive weapons. Our work is the main data used by the United Nations in reporting on explosive weapons use.
Contacts:
Iain Overton, Director of Policy and Investigations, ioverton@aoav.org.uk (07984 645145)
Robert Perkins, Senior Weapons Researcher, rperkins@aoav.org.uk