War death estimates 'need tripling'
War deaths need tripling, study says
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Friday, 20, Jun 2008 08:32
Estimates of the number of people suffering violent deaths in wars around the world in the last 50 years need to be tripled, a study published today claims.
Death toll estimates from conflicts are usually open to criticism from both sides. Those opposed to the war in question tend to exaggerate them, while government estimates are often disparaged for being excessively rigorous in their definitions.
US-based researchers concluded data on violent war deaths in 13 countries, including Vietnam, Bosnia and Zimbabwe, show 5.8 million people were killed between 1955 and 2002.
They say peacetime assessments of the number of dead, conducted by the United Nation's world health survey, need to be revised upwards threefold to get nearer to the reality, as seen through their passive surveillance data.
Using eyewitnesses and the media to count the number of war deaths has led to even greater revisions in some cases.
The death toll in Bangladesh's struggle for independence should be increased from 58,000 to 269,000, they say, while in Zimbabwe 130,000 people are now believed to have died. The original estimate was just 28,000.
"The importance of war as a public health problem and a social problem makes this imperative," Richard Garfield from Columbia University writes on the British Medical Journal's website in an accompanying editorial.
He suggests even these estimates significantly underplay the total impact of war on death rates because they only include violent deaths.
"In the poorest countries, where most conflicts now occur, a rise in deaths from infectious diseases often dwarf the number of violent deaths during a conflict," Professor Garfield added.