Casualty recorders should collect the following data: location of incident, date or time of incident, source, numbers killed, name, age, sex/gender, type of death, involved actors, perpetrators.
Location of incident: this can be recorded to different levels of detail, for example from town or village down to GPS coordinates.
Date or time of incident: The highest level of available detail should again be recorded.
Source: At a minimum, the kind of source from which the record was created (a news report, official documents, crowdsourcing, witness testimony, etc.) should be recorded for internal use, with a record of the specific document.
Numbers killed: This is the lowest level of detail about casualties required for the recording of an incident. When the minimum information about an individual victim (name, age, sex) is not available, recording this information constitutes the minimal acceptable level of casualty recording.
Name: This will often require close knowledge of local naming conventions, as well as the ability to accommodate different names for the same individual where necessary (nicknames, noms de guerre)
Age: This means the age of the person at the time of the incident – whether it is the time of death or in case of missing persons the time of disappearance (as the time of disappearance and time of death might differ). If the exact age is unknown, a casualty recorder may choose to give an indication as to whether the person was a child or an adult, or use additional broad categories, e.g. baby, infant, teenager, elder etc.
Sex/gender: How a victim was identified at the time of their death.
Type of death: How those involved in an incident died. Casualty recorders may approach this in different ways, for example by describing the weapons used, a medical cause of death, or a description of the incident.
Involved actors: The groups and individuals that are reported to have been involved in the incident which incurred deaths.
DEVELOPING STANDARDS FOR CASUALTY RECORDING A briefing document prepared by Every Casualty, p. 4
