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Globally, the civilian casualty ratio often hovers around 50%. It is sometimes stated that 90% of victims of modern wars are civilians, [13] but that is a myth. [2] [4]In 1989, William Eckhardt studied casualties of conflicts from 1700 to 1987 and found that "the civilian percentage share of war-related deaths remained at about 50% from century to century."
However, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that civilian fatalities have climbed from 5 per cent at the turn of the century to more than 90 per cent in the wars of the 1990s. [4] Generating reliable assessments of casualties of war is a notoriously complex process. Civilian casualties present particular difficulties.
Taken together, independent estimates from the non-governmental organizations New America and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggest that civilians made up between 7.27% to 15.47% of deaths in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia from 2009–2016, with a broadly similar rate from 2017–2019. [7]
The number of civilian and military deaths is impossible to determine with precision. [124] [107] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) considers the number of civilian casualties to be considerably higher than the one the United Nations are able to certify. [125]
In March 2013, Ben Emmerson, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, led a U.N. team that looked into civilian casualties from the U.S. drone attacks, and stated that the attacks are a violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan.
Syrian government forces have pursued mass-killings of civilian populations as part of its war-strategy throughout the conflict; and is responsible for inflicting more than 90% of the total civilian deaths in the Syrian civil war. [citation needed] Between 2011 and 2021, a minimum of 306,000 civilian deaths are estimated to have occurred by the UN.
As of 2024, the attacks had resulted in the UN-documented deaths of between 11,000 [9] and estimated 40,000 dead civilians. [10] On 22 April 2022, the UN reported that of the 2,343 civilian casualties it had been able to document, it could confirm 92.3% of these deaths were as a result of the actions of the Russian armed forces. [11]
According to UN reports, pro-government elements, (which includes ISAF and Afghan forces) accounted for 39% of civilian deaths in 2008. By 2010 that percentage dropped to 15%, and declined further by 2013 to 11%.