The Bosnian Book of the Dead

In January 2013, the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo[a] published its final research on Bosnia-Herzegovina's war casualties, titled The Bosnian Book of the Dead.

Overview

The research was summarized in a database that included 97,207 confirmed names of Bosnia and Herzegovina's citizens, killed during the 1992–1995 war, with an additional 5,100 unconfirmed names.[1] An international team of experts evaluated the findings before they were released. Ewa Tabeu, the head of the ICTY[b] Demographic Unit, called it "the largest existing database on Bosnian war victims".[2][3]

Confirmed casualties

Of the 97,207 casualties documented by 2013:[4]

  • 60% were soldiers, 40% civilians
  • 90% were male
  • 62% were Bosniaks, 25% Bosnian Serbs, and just over 8% Croats
  • Of civilian victims, 82% were Bosniaks, 10% Bosnian Serbs, and 6.5% Bosnian Croats, with a small number of Jews, Roma and others.[3][5]

The percentage of civilian victims would probably have been higher had survivors not reported their loved-ones as "soldiers" to access social services and other post-mortem benefits.[6]

Notelist

  1. Bosnian: Istraživačko dokumentacioni centar Sarajevo
  2. The acronym for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

References

  1. "After years of toil, book names Bosnian war dead". Reuters. 2013-02-15.
  2. "Bosnia war dead figure announced". BBC News. 2007-06-21.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Research and Documentation Center: Rezultati istraživanja "Ljudski gubici '91–'95" Archived 2010-12-03 at the Wayback Machine
  4. "Research shows estimates of Bosnian war death toll were inflated". International Herald Tribune. June 21, 2007. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  5. Lara J. Nettelfield (2010). Courting Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521763806. Retrieved July 22, 2013., pp. 96–98
  6. Patrick Ball, Ewa Tabeau and Philip Verwimp (June 17, 2007). "The Bosnian Book of Dead: Assessment of the Database" (PDF). Households in Conflict Network. p. 5. Retrieved 16 May 2015.