Numbers and statistics can become abstract all too quickly. Humans are not interchangeable, and representing their deaths solely as a statistic obscures this. Whenever possible, iraqbodycount.org records and publishes demographic and personal details of victims.
We continue our series marking 20 years of the #IraqWar on the importance of case-by-case documentation in giving a human face to the victims of this war. As we wrote earlier:
Only incident-based recording can reveal human details such as the occupations of the killed and injured. By March 2005 we had recorded 153 occupations. Now they number over 800 (just 171, from A–C, showing in this graphic), a telling sign that no sector of society is spared.
No part of Iraq escaped the lethal violence of the invasion and its aftermath, although the violence peaked at different times in different places. The earlier years saw the greatest loss of life in Baghdad and Anbar (particularly Fallujah). During 2016 it was Mosul in Ninewa.
In the absence of names and occupations, it is still important to record what demographic information is available (e.g. age and gender). All deaths are concerning, but those of the most vulnerable even more so (e.g. children, who make up 10% of the recorded dead).
Children continue to be victims of violence right up to the present. On March 6 2023 near Muqdadiya, Baquba, a lawyer, his wife, and his two children were killed in an explosives attack on their car.
shafaq.com/ar/%D8%A3%D9%8…
Resources permitting, IBC is committed to increasing our efforts to record the dead as the individuals they were in life, as remembered by those who knew and loved them: a project we began to develop in 2015 iraqbodycount.org/analysis/refer…
No victim should unnecessarily remain hidden in a statistic. The nascent Iraq Digital Memorial will allow the production of permanent, publicly-accessible victim records using testimony and media from relatives, friends and colleagues (along the lines of iraqbodycount.org/database/incid…)
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