ReliefWeb

PROVIDING FOR PEACEKEEPING NO. 14

MARINA E. HENKE

Executive Summary

How deadly is UN peacekeeping? Have UN peacekeeping fatalities increased over the past decades?

This report takes a fresh look at these questions by analyzing trends in UN peacekeeping fatalities using a new dataset compiled by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). The dataset accounts for monthly UN fatalities by cause of fatality (accident, malicious act, illness, and other causes), nationality of the deceased, and UN personnel type of the deceased for each UN operation worldwide from 1948 to June 2015. To assess UN fatality trends, the report calculates fatality ratios (i.e., UN fatality numbers relative to UN deployment levels) by national contingent, UN mission, and globally (i.e., all UN missions combined). As a result of the new data employed and these methodological innovations, this report constitutes the most detailed study of UN fatality trends thus far.

The analysis reveals that overall UN fatalities are not substantively on the rise. Indeed, total fatality ratios are sharply declining. Nevertheless, this decline does not equally apply to all types of UN fatalities. While fatality numbers and ratios due to accidents and malicious acts are decreasing, the same cannot be said for illness-related fatality numbers and ratios. Indeed, there is strong evidence that UN fatality numbers due to illness are on the rise, and UN fatality ratios due to illness are also trending upward (though the increase is not statistically significant). Increasingly, troops, police, and military observers die due to illnessrelated causes while serving in UN missions.

While these findings on UN fatality trends are important, they should not be used as the sole measure to assess the risks UN peacekeepers face. Given the important medical advances in recent years, many more wounded soldiers are able to survive. As a result, to adequately examine whether UN peacekeeping missions have become more dangerous in recent years, we also need to take into account the number of injuries and/or attacks on UN peacekeepers. Unfortunately, the UN thus far does not systematically collect and make publicly available such data.