Iraq

Casualties

Last updated: 10 October 2018

 

Casualties[1]

All known mine/ERW casualties by end 2017

Many thousands; a total of 38,867 were reported

Casualties in 2017

Annual total

304

179% increase from
109 in 2016

Survival outcome

185 killed; 118 injured (1 unknown)

Device type causing casualties

28 antipersonnel mines; 161 improvised mine; 53 unspecified mine; 57 explosive remnants of war (ERW); 5 unexploded submunition

Civilian status

148 civilians; 6 deminers; 28 military; 122 unknown 

Age and gender

104 Adult
9 women; 91 men; 4 unknown

48 children
32 boys; 5 girls; 11 unknown

152 unknown

 

Casualties in 2017–details

As in previous years, it is certain that there are many more mine/ERW casualties that occurred in 2017 that have not been identified. Discrepancies between available data prevent identification of casualty trends between years. It appears likely that improvised landmine casualties that occurred in Mosul in 2017 were massively underreported. It was reported that large sections of Mosul were mined and booby-trapped by thenon-state armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL). In August 2017, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) was reported as stating that since clearance operations began in October 2016, some 1,700 people had been killed or injured by such explosive hazards.[2]

Data specifically disaggregated on casualties of improvised mines (victim-activated improvised explosive devices, IEDs) remained scare. A total of 141 (111 killed and 30 injured) casualties caused by booby-traps in houses—the majority of whom were civilians returning home after being displaced—were reported in Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and Iraq Body Count (IBC) data. These 141 casualties were recorded as caused by improvised mines in Monitor global data. 

ACLED also reported hundreds of other IED casualties, but it was not possible to distinguish those that were caused by victim-activated IEDs (improvised mines) and therefore these were not included in the Monitor total. Likewise, IBC reported thousands of roadside bomb casualties, but similarly it was not possible to identify which of these constituted improvised mines and therefore they were also not added to the total. 

In 2018, Iraq reported that 6,036 mine/ERW survivors were registered in the process of survey collected data in the areas freed from the control of IS. The initial results were for survey in the period December 2017 through 30 March 2018. It was not reported how many of those casualties registered in the survey occurred in the year 2017. The survey was still ongoing in Anbar in June 2018.[3]

The Monitor identified casualties in 2017 from the following sources: the Directorate for Mine Action (DMA), the Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency (IKMAA), the ACLED, IBC, and Iraq’s Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 reports. IBC data was available only to the end of February 2017.[4]

Of the total casualties recorded for 2017, 23 were reported by IKMAA and occurred in the Iraqi Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.[5] This is a decrease from the 41 reported by IKMAA for 2016.

For central and southern Iraq, the DMA reported 73 casualties in seven governorates in 2017.[6] The Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report provides information about only one submunition casualty, which the Monitor also identified as included in the ACLED data, but which is not included in the DMA data.[7]

In addition to the governorates listed above, casualties were reported by ACLED and IBC in Diyala, Kerbala, and Kirkuk.

The full number of casualties in Iraq remains unknown, though it is known that there are many thousands. By the end of 2017, the DMA reported having recorded 25,381 casualties in central and southern Iraq.[8] Details of the cumulative total were not provided for 2017. The 2017 cumulative casualty total was far higher than the 17,938 casualties reported by the end of 2016, of which 6,143 were clearly defined in the detail of the data specifically as mine/ERW casualties.[9] IKMAA reported 13,486 mine/ERW casualties for all time in Iraqi Kurdistan.[10] Previously, 31,618 casualties were reported in all of Iraq by the end of 2013, including 13,423 casualties registered in Kurdistan and 17,072 in central and southern Iraq.[11] 

Cluster munition casualties 

By the end of 2017, 3,030 casualties from cluster munitions had been recorded. Of these casualties, 388 occurred during strikes (128 killed; 260 injured).[12] Iraq’s survey of mine/ERW victims had identified 880 victims of cluster munitions (148 killed; 732 injured) in five provinces as of 31 March 2014.[13] Due to the level of contamination, it has been estimated that there have been between 5,500 and 8,000 casualties from cluster munitions since 1991 (including casualties that occurred during cluster munition strikes), and that one quarter of the estimated total casualties were children.[14]

In 2017, the Monitor identified five unexploded cluster submunition casualties, all were children, and all were fatalities. The DMA reported that four boys were killed in two incidents in Muthanna province. Iraq’s Article 7 report and ACLED reported one girl killed in Kerbala province.



[1] Unless otherwise indicated, casualty data for 2017 is based on: emails from Riyad Nasr, Head, Victim Assistance Department, Directorate for Mine Action (DMA), 25 March, and 1 April 2018; and from Mudhafar Aziz Hamad, Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency (IKMAA), 19 April 2018; the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) Iraq data for calendar year 2017; Iraq Body Count data for January to February 2017; Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2017), Form J; and, Convention on Cluster Munition Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2017).

[2] Lucy Rodgers, Nassos Stylianou, & Daniel Dunford, “Is anything left of Mosul? The battle to save the city and its people,” 9 August 2017.

[3] Statement of Iraq, Mine Ban Treaty Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 7 June 2018.

[4] The data included in Iraq’s Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 reports for calendar year 2017 did not correspond to the data provided by the DMA for the same period.

[5] These casualties in Iraqi Kurdistan occurred in Dohuk, Erbil, Mousl, and Sulaymaniyah. In Iraqi Kurdistan, antipersonnel mines resulted in 11 casualties and 12 were caused by ERW. Email from Mudhafar Aziz Hamad, IKMAA, 19 April 2018.

[6] These were: Anbar, Babylon, Basrah, Missan, Muthanna, Ninewa, and Thi Qar. Forty-five casualties were caused by ERW, including eight by “fragments,” 20 by improvised mines, four by unspecified mines, and four by unexploded submunition. Iraq’s Article 7 report stated there were 17 antipersonnel mine casualties in Muthanna, Thi Qar, Basra, and Missan. Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2017), Form J. According to the device type and location of the mine/ERW incidents, only one casualty could possibly be a duplication with the DMA data. The Monitor has treated these as separate data sets with both casualties included in the global total.

[7] Convention on Cluster Munition Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2017); and ACLED Iraq data for calendar year 2017.

[8] Email from Riyad Nasr, DMA, 1 April 2018.

[9] Monitor analysis of DMA casualty data provided by email from Riyad Nasir, DMA, 18 May 2017.

[10] Email from Mudhafar Aziz Hamad, IKMAA, 19 April 2018.

[11] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (calendar year 2013), Form J; and Convention on Cluster Munition Article 7 Report (calendar year 2013), Form H.

[12] 2,989 to April 2007; four in 2008; one in 2009; one in 2010; 16 in 2011; none in 2012; eight in 2013; two in 2014; four in 2016; and five in 2017. Handicap International (HI), Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities (Brussels: HI, May 2007), p. 104; Monitor analysis of casualty data provided by email from Mohammed Rasoul, Kurdistan Organization for Rehabilitation of the Disabled (KORD), 2 August 2010; Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2009), Form J. Casualties for Erbil and Dohuk governorates only; Monitor media monitoring for calendar year 2009; email from Aziz Hamad, IKMAA, 14 June 2011; Convention on Cluster Munition Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2013), Form H; emails from Riyad Nasr, DMA, 25 March, and 1 April 2018, and Convention on Cluster Munition Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2017).

[13] It is not known if these 880 victims overlap with the 3,011 that were already identified. Convention on Cluster Munition Article 7 Report (calendar year 2013), Form H.

[14] HI, Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities (Brussels: HI, May 2007), p. 104; and UNDP, “Cluster Munitions Maim and Kill Iraqis – Every Day,” 10 November 2010.