In various countries of conflict, recorders have identified religious communities and leaders as a particularly important source of information about casualties.
Religious communities tend to be trusted as non-belligerent and non-political, so have access sometimes denied to other parties, and provide testimony or data that is seen to be unbiased. One source of information comes from the close involvement of religious organisations in funerals and burials, which means that data relating to victims is often recorded in the official documentation of that religious body.
THE RANGE OF SOURCES IN CASUALTY RECORDING, p. 15