Most of the recorders using an on-the-ground network contribute or intend to contribute their information about casualties to legal processes. Others use status categories to draw attention to the nature of the conflict and how it affects civilians, with the aim of political change.
All these recorders were closely connected by the nature of their work to local communities, which were a source of information. For most this meant that they could obtain detailed information about victims and their deaths, which can be crucial to categorising by combat status. Where a recorder could not carry out these investigations, they relied on the categorisations their sources gave them. They recorded status having assessed the reliability of their source’s information using their own confirmation procedures.
DEFINITION AND CATEGORISATION IN CASUALTY RECORDING, p. 22
