Call for all casualties of conflict to be properly recorded

originally by: TBIJ
15th September 2011

A major international initiative was launched in London today, calling on all governments to record every person killed in armed violence.

The campaign was launched by the UK-based Oxford Research Group and has been compared to the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross more than a century ago.

The Charter for the Recognition of Every Casualty of Armed Violence, demands that all states ensure every casualty of armed violence is:

• Promptly recorded
• Correctly identified
• Publicly acknowledged

Nearly 40 major humanitarian and human rights organisations around the world have already endorsed the Charter.

Sir Adam Roberts, president of the British Academy which hosted the launch, said: ‘Governments increasingly recognise the salience of civilian casualties. If so, why not a willingness to record the civilian casualties we claim to care about so much?’

The charter has been drawn up part in reaction to the continuing search for many thousands of ‘missing’ people from high profile conflicts, such as Bosnia, where more than 10,000 people are still unaccounted for.

Hamid Dardagan of Oxford Research Group explained: ‘Armed violence continues to exact its human toll throughout the world, yet all too many of its victims die in obscurity, unnamed and unacknowledged, the pain and tragedy of their loss forever missing from the public record.’

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Posted by Alison Leslie on 15/09/2011. Filed under Policy & Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry