mounting CIVILIAN death toll
Xiao Zen 2014/07/30 06:48
There have been 2 stories recently that have been making headlines for ever mounting civilian casualties in military conflicts. Ukraine and Israel.
Now I'm sure everyone has their opinions for or against whatever parties are involved in either conflict, either way politics is not my focus, I'm not interested in who is "right".
"Civilian casualty ratio" is the ratio of combatants to civilians that are killed or injured directly as consequence of military conflict. Throughout most of recorded western history that has been 1:1 (meaning half of deaths and injuries in a conflict zone are that that of civilians). This figure rose to 2:1 during World war 2 (2 civilians dead or injured for every 1 combatant), 4:1 in the 1999 war in the Yugoslavia (4 civilians for every combatant).
In the recent fighting in Gaza the UN estimates (unconfirmed) the ratio is possibly as high as 5:1 meaning of the 1130 odd deaths recorded on both sides since the start of fighting over 800 could be civilians and that does not even take into account the 7000+ that have been injured.
It just seems like Hamas has its supporters, the Israelis have theirs but no one is really standing up for the primary victims, the ordinary civilians being killed in large numbers on a daily basis in a conflict not of their making. I do not have the numbers for the conflict in Ukraine but I do not think they will be any better -sigh- ...
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