Estimating battle deaths: a challenging exercise

There are currently two datasets that provide estimates of the number of worldwide battle deaths—i.e., combat-related deaths—that occur in state-based armed conflicts.2 (State-based armed conflicts are those in which at least one of the warring parties is the government of a state). Battle deaths include not only combatants but also civilians caught in the crossfire— deaths that are often referred to as collateral damage.

For researchers and policy-makers interested in understanding trends in death tolls from organized violence and what drives them, and in determining the impact of violence-reduction strategies, there are no substitutes for the trend data revealed by the PRIO and UCDP battledeath datasets. The datasets serve different but complementary purposes.