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100 000 excess civilian deaths in Iraq since March 2003

BMJ 2004; 329 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7474.1066 (Published 04 November 2004) Cite this as: BMJ 2004;329:1066
  1. Owen Dyer
  1. London

    The first scientific study of civilian casualties in Iraq has found that the rise in mortality from pre-invasion levels equates to 100 000 extra civilian deaths since March 2003. The research, published early online in the Lancet, concluded that violence has overtaken chronic disease as the leading cause of mortality since last year's invasion, and the leading cause of violent death has been airstrikes by coalition forces (www.thelancet.com/journal).

    The findings are based on a survey funded by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and by Iraqi doctors, who questioned 30 households in each of 33 randomly selected population clusters. Assuming an average seven residents in each household, the authors estimated their …

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