Iraq’s ministries and Iraq Body Count have released their figures for casualties in the country for September 2011. Both organizations showed a drop in deaths from the previous month. Icasualties, which has been tracking the same numbers since 2005, has stopped reporting since July 2011 for some reason. The new reports show that after a short uptick in deaths from June to August, they returned to their previous mark by September.
Iraq Body Count and Iraq’s ministries both said that deaths were down in September. Iraq Body Count had 327 casualties for the month, compared to 398 in August. Iraq’s Defense, Interior, and Health ministries on the other hand, said that 185 Iraqis died last month, which was below August’s count of 239. Together that averaged out to 256 deaths for September, down from 318 in August. Daily averages went from 10.2 in August to 8.2 last month. The fact that icasualties is no longer reporting on Iraq actually provides a more realistic picture of violence. Icasualties has always said that its reporting is not comprehensive, and that the actual numbers are much higher. That’s largely because it relies upon western reporting for its information. Still, attacks remain relatively low in the country compared to previous years, so the exclusion of icasualties does not dramatically change the averages.
Month | Iraq Body Count | Iraqi Ministries | Avg. Monthly Deaths | Avg. Daily Deaths |
Jan. | 387 | 259 | 323 | 10.4 |
Feb. | 250 | 167 | 208 | 7.4 |
Mar. | 307 | 247 | 277 | 8.9 |
Apr. | 285 | 211 | 248 | 8.2 |
May | 378 | 177 | 277 | 8.9 |
Jun. | 386 | 271 | 328 | 10.9 |
Jul. | 305 | 259 | 282 | 9.0 |
Aug. | 395 | 239 | 318 | 10.2 |
Sep. | 327 | 185 | 256 | 8.2 |
September’s figures show that deaths have gone back to their previous mark, after a three-month spike. Last month’s average of 8.2 deaths per day was on par with February to May when there were 8.35 casualties a day. From June to August, killings slightly spiked to 10.9 in June, 9.0 in July, and 10.2 in August. For the year, there has been an average of 9.1 deaths per day. That shows the limitations of the country’s insurgency, which is only capable of launching large-scale operations sporadically these days. Otherwise the number of deaths has been relatively stable since the beginning of 2009. That doesn’t mean there are not daily shootings and bombings still, but that their frequency is way down from before.
SOURCES
Agence France Presse, “Iraq death toll down,” 10/1/11
Iraq Body Count
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