22 June 2007

Bosnian War death toll revised downwards

A study entitled "The Bosnian Book of Dead", conducted over the course of three years by the Research and Documentation Centre located in Sarajevo, has concluded that 97,207 people were killed in the Bosnian War (1992-1995).

According to the Centre, about 65% of those killed were Muslims (Bosniaks), 25% were Serbs, and 8% were Croats (BBC).

I'm glad that this number is only half the original estimate of 200,000. But it is still shocking that this many people were killed in a Europe that had supposedly learned the lessons of the two World Wars.

Muslims suffered disproportionately in the war: although 65% of those killed in the war were Muslims, the community represented only 41% of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of the civilians, 83 percent were Bosniaks, 10 percent were Serbs and 5 percent were Croats.

http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2007/06/bosnian-book-of-dead.html

Rashed said...

Thank you very much for this information. This once again goes to show how skewed official Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav propaganda was during the war, and the extent to which the Bosnian Muslims bore the brunt of the carnage.

Anonymous said...

Hi rashed,

let me be more specific:

"Of the 97,000 documented casualties in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 83 percent of civilian victims were Bosniaks, 10 percent of civilian victims were Serbs and more than 5 percent of civilian victims were Croats. The percentage of Bosniak victims would be higher had survivors of Srebrenica not reported their loved-ones as 'soldiers' to access social services and other government benefits."

Note: "In a case of Srebrenica massacre, during and after the war, many families asked that their family members be buried as soldiers, for various reasons, although they died as civilians or as soldiers away from front lines. The most common reason for these requests was access to social support for families of killed soldiers."

Anonymous said...

One more thing rashed,

In other words and with respect to Srebrenica genocide; a POW, a surrendered soldier without a weapon would all be listed as 'soldiers' on the RDC list; even though they were clearly non-combatants at the time of the deaths. When registering such cases, RDC was governed by the official data that was available.

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