Pakistan - Every Casualty Counts

The partition of Pakistan from India in 1947 resulted in massive population displacement and loss of life. Casualty estimates range from 200,000 to two million deaths, with a significant portion occurring in areas that became modern-day Pakistan. Subsequent armed conflict between India and Pakistan over the region of Kashmir has led to several thousand deaths, including both military personnel and civilians. Sporadic border conflict, including the 1999 Kargil Conflict, has claimed several hundred additional casualties, mostly military.

Inter-ethnic and sectarian violence increased substantially in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the urban centre of Karachi. The total death toll to date, overwhelmingly civilians, is believed to exceed 15,000. At the peak of the violence, the death toll reached an estimated 2,000 victims per year.

Multiple phases of insurgency in the south west region of Balochistan since the 1950s have resulted in thousands more deaths among civilians, non-state armed actors and Pakistani security forces. Thousands more have been subjected to enforced disappearances or have gone missing, presumed dead.

Since 2001, more than 50,000 people are believed to have been killed in Pakistan as a result of the ‘War on Terror’. Military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Swat and Federally Administered Tribal Areas between 2007 – 2016 resulted in high casualty levels among civilians as well as armed actors. Approximately 8,000 Pakistani security personnel are believed to have died in these operations. U.S. drone strikes during this period are believed to have caused between 2,500-4,000 deaths, including both militants and civilians.

Terrorist attacks, including hundreds of suicide bombings targeting public locations, have caused thousands of casualties in Pakistan since 2001. Among these, the attack on Peshawar Army Public School in 2014 caused 149 deaths, mostly children. At its peak, up to 5,000 terrorism-related deaths were recorded annually.

What we’re doing

Every Casualty Counts works with civil society organisations documenting casualties of armed violence in Pakistan to raise awareness of the extent and nature of violent deaths in the country. We help them draw international attention to these issues, and provide technical support to further develop their recording processes.

We were able to look in our database and tell the boy’s family, Look, this is where he died, this is where he is buried. Sad news, but also a big relief as they did not know what had happened to their son.
Pakistan Body Count

Casualty Recorders Network (CRN) members’ evidence to the OHCHR study on the impact of casualty recording on the promotion and protection of human rights

22 May 2023

Every Casualty Counts worked with numerous members of our Casualty Recorders Network, and other casualty recording initiatives, to provide further evidence to the OHCHR study on casualty recording.

Drone Attacks, International Law, and the Recording of Civilian Casualties of Armed Conflict

5 February 2012

The Drone Wars and Pakistan’s Conflict Casualties

5 February 2011

Casualty recording in Pakistan

Efforts to record casualties of armed violence in Pakistan have been inconsistent and incomplete. This in part reflects the complexity of armed violence in the country, and the multiple actors involved. It is also the result of institutional and political limitations. There is no single database capturing the full scope of casualties of armed violence. Documentation is spread across multiple organisations and initiatives, and frequently contested.

There are various obstacles to gathering and verifying information on casualties in Pakistan. Security issues are complex and sensitive, and there is a lack of government transparency relating to military operations, including casualties. It can be dangerous and difficult for investigators to access remote areas and conflict zones to independently verify information. Civil registries and record-keeping in some rural areas is incomplete, particularly where there is no functioning administrative body.

Categorisation of incidents, victims and perpetrators is often subjective and can lead to substantially differing accounts. For example, an incident might be listed as terrorism or criminal, depending on the perspective of the person documenting it. Similarly, political affiliation may influence whether a victim is classified as a civilian, armed actor, criminal or terrorist. Enforced disappearances create an additional complication for record-keeping efforts, as the fate of the individual is ambiguous. A nationwide, standardised approach to definitions and categorisations would help tackle many of these inconsistencies and enable more transparent analysis.

State-led efforts to document casualties

Civilian and military deaths from armed conflict and violence are a politically sensitive issue in Pakistan. There is no state-led effort to record and identify casualties transparently. Military and security agencies have maintained records of casualties during major conflicts since 1947, but this information is typically classified and/or incomplete. Documentation of casualties in these instances was undertaken for strategic reasons, not with the intention of creating transparent public records or memorialising the victims.

Some provincial governments have attempted to track violence-related deaths, especially during periods of ethnic and sectarian violence. However, these records are generally incomplete and not considered reliable. They are perceived as heavily influenced by the political motivations and affiliations of those producing the data.

There are no UN-mandated conflict casualty recording initiatives for Pakistan.

Civil society-led casualty recording in Pakistan

The most consistent and comprehensive sources of information on conflict casualties in Pakistan come from independent civil society organisations, academics, and the national Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. These organisations have compiled data and analysed trends relating to violent deaths across the country for many years. However, they do not routinely publish details on specific individuals.

Information on individual casualties

Sources of information about people killed in the armed conflict in Pakistan:

Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS)

CRN Member

PIPS is an independent think-tank of Pakistani scholars and researchers focused on national and international conflict. PIPS documents and analyses conflict casualties in Pakistan, to inform policymakers and promote effective violence reduction. It maintains a public Conflict and Security Database documenting casualties in detail. Since 2006, it has documented over 25,242 conflict-related deaths within Pakistan.

PIPS gathers casualty data through daily monitoring of local and national media, supplemented with direct investigation by a team of regional contacts. It does not publish details of individuals, although its published statistics are substantially disaggregated.

Center for Research and Security Studies

Find out more

The Center for Research and Security Studies is an independent Pakistani think tank established in September 2007. It conducts research and advocacy in relation to national security issues, including publication of an Annual Security Report which documents and analyses the number of violence-related casualties across the country. It does not publish details of individuals.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

Find out more

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan is an independent national institution, established in 1986. It consistently documents violence-related deaths, publishing annual reports that include statistical casualty data. It does not publish details of individuals.

Image: Candlelight vigil – Pakistan Flood by beanuts licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0