The civilian casualty ratio in armed conflicts quantifies the percentage of civilian casualties in relation to combatant or total casualties, including fatalities, injuries, and wider demographic effects. According to global estimates from Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross, baseline civilian proportions typically fall between 30% and 66%, depending on the urban or general warfare context.
Global estimates Globally, the civilian casualty ratio often hovers around 50%. It is sometimes stated that 90% of victims of modern wars are civilians,Graça Machel, "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children", Report of the expert of the Secretary-General, 26 Aug 1996, p. 9. but that is a myth.Human Security Report 2005, page 75Adam Roberts, "Lives and Statistics: Are 90% of War Victims Civilians?", Survival, London, vol. 52, no. 3, June–July 2010, pp. 115–35. Print edition ISSN 0039-6338. Online ISSN 1468-2699.
In 1989, William Eckhardt studied casualties of conflicts from 1700 to 1987 and found that "the civilian percentage share of war-related deaths remained at about 50% from century to century." He noted the civilian casualty ratio remained consisted despite the fact that number of deaths from wars increased four times faster than the increase in world population, when comparing the 18th century to the 20th century.
In 1999, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimated that between 30 and 65% of conflict casualties were civilians. The 2005 Human Security Report noted that the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) indicated, in 2002, that 30–60% of fatalities from conflicts were civilians.
The "Cities and Armed Conflict Events (CACE)" database of the UCDP provides death counts for all urban conflicts between 1989 and 2017. According to the CACE, in urban conflicts (defined as all cities with a population > 100,000): 28.9% of deaths are civilians, 29.5% are combatants, and 41.628% are unknown. If excluding unknowns, then civilian casualties make up 49.5% of all fatalities in warfare in cities. If the data is limited to cities with population >750,000, then 29.8% of deaths are civilians, 15.3% are combatants, and 54.9% are unknown. If excluding unknowns, then civilian casualties make up 66.1% of all fatalities in warfare in large cities.
Myth of the 90% civilian casualties During the 1990s, an argument arose that the civilian casualty ratio in modern warfare had dramatically increased, stating that while civilians constituted 10% of casualties in 1900, they constituted 90% by the end of the century. This figure has been widely doubted, and research has found little to no evidence that 90% of casualties are civilians. The 2005 Human Security Report called it a "myth" and instead suggested that 30–60% of fatalities from conflicts in 2002 were civilians. Likewise, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 1999, that between 30 and 65% of conflict casualties were civilians.
The lack of evidence for the 90% figure concerns civilian casualties in warfare generally. However, ratios of around 90% have been reported in specific circumstances, particularly when explosive weapons are used in densely populated areas.
There are two original sources for the claim that civilians account for 90% of casualties in warfare overall. The first source – Christa Ahlström and Kjell-Åke Nordquist's 1991 Casualties of ConflictAhlstrom, C. and K.-A. Nordquist (1991). Casualties of conflict: report for the world campaign for the protection of victims of war. Uppsala, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. published by Uppsala University – stated that "nine out of ten victims (dead and uprooted) of war and armed conflict today are civilians". Some readers misconstrued it as 90% of fatalities being civilians. In fact, the same report counted only fatalities for the year of 1989 and in that case found only 67% of fatalities were civilians. The second source was Ruth Sivard's World Military and Social Expenditures,Sivard, R. L. (1991). World Military and Social Expenditures 1991. Washington DC, World Priorities, Inc. Vol. 14, pp 22-25. also published in 1991. Sivard did indeed say that 90% of deaths in conflicts, during the year 1990, were civilian. But Sivard included famine-related deaths, which are typically not counted in civilian casualty ratios. Sivard was also criticized for not stating her sources, and the Human Security Report 2005 noted there was insufficient global data on deaths caused by war-related famine. Nevertheless, these claims were erroneously picked up by Graça Machel's "The Machel Review 1996–2000: A Critical Analysis of Progress Made and Obstacles Encountered in Increasing Protection for War-Affected Children" written for the UNICEF.
Comparison of conflicts While global institutional monitoring groups such as the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross estimate that the average civilian casualty rate across all modern conflicts is between 30% and 65%, the exact ratio varies significantly depending on tactical theater, urbanization, and definition criteria.
The table below summarizes recorded civilian casualty percentages and direct civilian-to-combatant death ratios based on historical consensus, military records, and human rights oversight frameworks:
Conflict Estimated Civilian % Direct Civilian-to-Combatant Ratio Core Documented Context & Framework World War I 40% – 50% ~1:1 Concentrated on localized trench fronts, with high indirect blockades and disease fatalities. World War II 60% – 67% ~2:1 Deliberate genocidal campaigns, such as the Holocaust, coupled with extensive strategic bombing of urban areas. Korean War ~74% ~3:1 Severe displacement cross-pressures, widespread air bombardment, and severe urban destruction. Vietnam War 46% – 67% 1:1 to 2:1 Asymmetric jungle and rural counter-insurgency warfare, with hotly debated combatant classification criteria. Bosnian War ~40% ~1:1.5 Highly specific demographic tracking by the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo. Iraq War 60% – 70% 1.5:1 to 2:1 Tracking created by the Iraq Body Count project, which mainly relies on hospital records, leaked military logs, and public media. War in Afghanistan ~25% ~1:3 Due to non-urban, sparsely populated insurgent combat engagements, there is a low relative direct civilian proportion. Gaza war 60% – 80% 1.5:1 to 4:1 High variation due to contrasting tracking methodologies used by the Gaza Health Ministry and the IDF in dense urban terrain. Russo-Ukrainian War (Donbas phase: 2014–2022) ~24% ~1:3 Localized trench warfare. The UN recorded 14,200 deaths: 3,404 civilians (including Malaysia Airlines Flight 17) and 10,900 combatants. Russo-Ukrainian War (Full-scale invasion phase) ~15% – 25% 1:3 to 1:5 Traditional attrition warfare between states. While the total number of military deaths exceeds 500,000, the UN confirmed over 11,000 civilian deaths (noting significant undercounts in occupied areas like Mariupol).
World wars
World War I
Due to the nature of trench and frontline warfare during World War I, casualties were primarily concentrated among active military personnel; however, blockades, famine, and disease caused significant indirect deaths on the home front. Depending on the geographic framework and standards used by historians, estimates of the conflict's overall death toll typically range from 15 to 22 million.
According to military records and comprehensive statistical tracking, military fatalities totaled between 9 million and 11 million individuals. Estimating civilian fatalities presents significant documentation challenges due to record-keeping failures and overlapping global crises such as the 1918 flu pandemic; institutional data sets attribute approximately 6 to 13 million civilian deaths to direct actions, structural massacres, or war-induced starvation.
According to these confirmed ranges, the generalized baseline civilian casualty ratio for World War I was close to a 1:1 ratio, meaning that civilian casualties accounted for between 40% and 50% of all conflict deaths. This is a lower overall proportion than in subsequent total wars or dense urban counter-insurgencies.
World War II
According to most sources, World War II was the most lethal war in world history, with some 70 million killed in six years. According to some, the civilian to combatant fatality ratio in World War II lies somewhere between 3:2 and 2:1, or from 60% to 67%.Sadowski, p. 134. See the World War II casualties article for a detailed breakdown of casualties. According to others, the ratio is at least 3:1 and potentially higher. The high ratio of civilian casualties in this war was due in part to the increasing effectiveness and lethality of strategic weapons which were used to target enemy industrial or population centers, and famines caused by economic disruption. An estimated 2.1–3 million Indians died in the Bengal famine of 1943 in India during World War II. A substantial number of civilians in this war were also deliberately killed by Axis powers as a result of genocide such as the Holocaust or other ethnic cleansing campaigns.Neiberg, Michael S. (2002): Warfare in World History, pp. 68-70, Routledge, .
Cold war and post-Soviet wars Korean War The median total estimated Korean civilian deaths in the Korean War is 2,730,000. The total estimated North Korean combatant deaths is 213,000 and the estimated Chinese combatant deaths is over 400,000. In addition to this the Republic of Korea combatant deaths is around 134,000 dead and the combatant deaths for the United Nations side is around 49,000 dead and missing (40,000 dead, 9,000 missing). The estimated total Korean war military dead is around 793,000 deaths. The civilian-combatant death ratio in the war is approximately 3:1 or 75%. One source estimates that 20% of the total population of North Korea perished in the war.Deane, p. 149.
Vietnam War Although there is still considerable historical disagreement regarding the exact ratio, the baseline civilian casualty ratio for the Vietnam War is estimated to be between 46% and 67%.
A civilian-to-combatant ratio of roughly 2:1 (or 67%) resulted from the Vietnamese government's estimate of two million domestic civilian deaths during the conflict, along with 1.1 million combatant deaths from the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong. In contrast, a U.S. Senate subcommittee report from 1975 documented a much lower baseline, with roughly 415,000 civilian deaths in South Vietnam and 1.1 million military deaths in all theaters, or a ratio close to 1:3 (or 25%). The overall ratio moves toward a 1:1 balance when the lowest historical estimates of Vietnamese military deaths—roughly 400,000—are used.
There are significant tracking issues when these ratios are compiled. In order to maximize enemy body counts, U.S. military operations placed a high priority on quantified combat metrics. According to independent assessments, this environment frequently resulted in civilian deaths in free-fire zones being mistakenly classified as combatant casualties, artificially lowering the documented civilian ratio. Tens of thousands of civilians killed during concurrent operations in Cambodia and Laos are not included in these figures, which also do not account for broader regional spillover effects.
Bosnian war During the 1991–1995 Bosnian war, one study estimated 97,207 were killed, of which 39,648 (41%) were civilians. That study did acknowledge that it likely underestimated the civilian count and overestimated the soldier count. The Demographic Unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia used the capture-recapture method to estimate war-related deaths at 104,723, of which 42,106 (40%) were civilians.
Yugoslav Wars