Deaths from Organized Violence

Deaths from organized violence include battle deaths (from state-based and non-state armed conflict) and deaths from one-sided violence.

Battle deaths are reported and codable deaths that are the direct result of combat between warring parties in a conflict. The majority of battle deaths will be combatants; however, civilians caught in the crossfire are also included.

Deaths from one-sided violence are reported and codable deaths of civilians who were killed by a government or formally organized group.

Excess deaths are deaths that would not have occurred in the absence of armed conflict. This category includes both direct deaths (i.e., battle deaths) and indirect deaths (i.e., deaths from war exacerbated disease and malnutrition). There are no datasets that attempt to quantify excess death tolls at the global level. Estimates have been made of excess death tolls in individual countries; some of these have been sharply contested.

There are no datasets that provide estimates of civilian deaths from armed conflicts at the global level.

Six regions are used in the presentation of the data on deaths from organized violence.

State-Based Armed Conflicts

Non-State Armed Conflicts

One-Sided Violence