Many lives are being lost due to conflicts currently taking place around the world. In recent years, conflicts in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and South Sudan have been particularly large, and in 2015, the number of deaths due to conflict was167,000 peopleIt is believed to be the case. However, this is only a fraction of the deaths related to the conflict. This is because it is the number of people killed by direct acts of violence and does not include deaths from the by-products of conflict, such as starvation and infectious diseases. In fact, the number of deaths for reasons other than combat is enormous. However, for many conflicts, there is no research on the scale of these deaths. While various factors make this difficult to determine, the true number of people who have lost their lives to conflict in recent years remains unknown.

Destroyed City, Aleppo Syria IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation Azez, Aleppo (3) ( CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Here I would like to consider again how lives are lost when conflict breaks out in places where combat is not involved.

 The premise is that conflict is a complex social phenomenon. When conflict occurs, social services such as water, electricity, gas, and medical care are shut down, as are supermarkets and other stores that provide food. Transportation networks are disrupted, medical personnel are not available, and medicine is not delivered. Not only do people suffer physical damage from gunfire, but the destruction of towns and villages destroys the infrastructure of their lives. As a result, even if they manage to escape, there is no food to sustain them for the rest of their lives, and medicines to treat their injuries are in short supply. Sanitary conditions deteriorate and infectious diseases spread. Even if they are lucky enough to enter a refugee camp, infectious diseases often spread due to the high population density and lack of support for the camp. This is how people lose their lives.

 In fact, in recent conflicts, the number of deaths due to indirect damage from such conflicts ("indirect deaths") often exceeds the number of deaths due to violence ("direct deaths").

Data from the Global Burden of Armed Violence report by the Geneva DeclarationCreated based on

In fact, in the 13 conflicts listed in the table above, more than 60% of all deaths are indirect deaths in all but the Kosovo conflict. Of these, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the largest conflict in the world since World War II, has caused the largest number of deaths between August 1998 and April 2007, withAbout 5.4 million deadThe statistics show that less than 10% of the deaths are direct and 90% are indirect. Although the conflict is still partially ongoing, there are no longer any studies on the number of deaths. On the other hand, the fact that there were almost no indirect deaths in the Kosovo conflict is due in part to the high level of infrastructure and standard of living prior to the conflict, as well as the relatively high level of social security services in evacuated areas both inside and outside the country, which made the country relatively resilient to the crisis, but it is also due to the fact that the international community's attention to this conflict, which led to the intervention of the United States and NATO, has been very limited. However, the main reason was the large amount of humanitarian assistance provided to the conflict, which attracted the attention of the international community before the intervention of the U.S. and NATO. Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were both in conflict in 1999,The amount of assistance per capita is US$207 for the former versus US$8 for the latter.The difference between the two is stark. Viewed differently, indirect deaths in conflict are deaths that might be prevented by humanitarian assistance, in addition to the development of social infrastructure and improved living standards. As a key factor in preventing the absurd toll of conflict, the need for humanitarian assistance has increased in recent years.

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Financial Tracking Service Based on data from

Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs According to the United Nations, in 2016, as of DecemberThe amount needed to assist the approximately 96 million people to be assisted is approximately $22 billionThe report states that this is the largest amount of support for the project in the world. This is far more than last year's figure of $20 billion needed to support 83 million people. However, for such a great need, the amount of assistance that can realistically be provided is limited. Of the $22 billion needed this year, only 53%, or just over $10 billion, had been met as of December 8. Moreover, the population in need of assistance is estimated to be 130 million, more than the number of those eligible for assistance. The UN's definition of "target population" takes into account the importance of the situation, whether access to assistance is available, and whether the damage is beyond the scope of state-sponsored assistance.

For disputed areas, see Conflict Barometerdata on the amount of humanitarian aid and the percentage of achievement, Financial Tracking ServiceBased on data from the

What exactly is it that conflict destroys? If we take the premise that conflict is not simply a shooting war, but a complex social phenomenon, the way we see it changes. It is not simply the loss of life by bullets, but the destruction of normal life, and the number of people who can escape the fighting but lose their lives is enormous. For many conflicts, the fact is that such indirect deaths are rather overwhelming. With insufficient amounts of humanitarian aid, humanitarian assistance through international organizations is not the only essential approach. However, comparing the cases of the Kosovo and Congo conflicts, which have zero indirect deaths, it can be said that a certain correlation exists between the amount of attention in developed countries that provide aid, the amount of aid to that conflict, and the number of deaths from indirect causes. In the ongoing conflict in Nigeria, the 400,000 children starving In the conflict in Yemen, where more than 7,000 lives have already been lost in the fighting, suffering from14 million people are hungryof the world is at stake. While it is undoubtedly true that the parties to a conflict are the root cause of people's deaths, if the level of interest of the world's population in the conflict determines the amount of indirect deaths, then the majority of people who die in armed conflict may be the victims of world indifference, not handguns.

Writer: Yusuke Sugihara
Graphics: Yosuke Tomino, Miho Kono