Recorders identify which cases to include by looking at the details of an incident and assessing whether the incident should be considered part of the conflict. They look at perpetrator, the perpetrator's motivation, the target of the violence, or the type of violence.
Conflict parties could be involved in criminal activities that cause deaths, for example robberies, kidnappings for extortion, or trade in narcotics. Some recorders include these deaths, where the perpetrators were committing criminal activity to finance or support their conflict activities. These criminal activities did not directly further military goals, nor were they political violence, but they were committed to advance the conflict objectives of the perpetrators. So they were part of the conflict violence. These deaths are seen as arising from the conflict, due to the breakdown is security that the conflict caused. Other recorders consider deaths from these activities to be indirect deaths from conflict or not part of the conflict violence.
DEFINITION AND CATEGORISATION IN CASUALTY RECORDING, p. 10
