Statistics On Violence In Pakistan In 2008
Yesterday's blast in an Islamabad restaurant that killed one person and injured ten others got me thinking: exactly how violent has Pakistan been this year? I spent some time compiling the numbers. Before I show them to you, let me say a word or two about methodology.
First, I counted only explosion-related attacks. I included grenade attacks, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, and other explosions. I did not include gun violence. Second, I did not count attacks on military or police checkposts - though I did count attacks conducted on military or security personnel if they happened to take place in cities or while they were travelling. Third, I did not include attacks on militants and their holdouts. Fourth, these numbers are not 100% foolproof. In particular, casualty counts can sometimes be misleading, particularly since I relied on news reports the day after these attacks. Often a number of injured people die, but take longer than 24 hours to do so. When I did find revised estimates of casualties, I edited the figure for a particular attack, but this happened on only two occasions.
Hereunder is a table with the date, location, and number of casualties of each attack. In hindsight, I should have added another column for "type of attack" (i.e. suicide bomber, roadside bomb etc) but I simply forgot, and now I'm too lazy to go back and add it. If you're curious, you can click on any of the links provided to learn more about each attack.
First, I counted only explosion-related attacks. I included grenade attacks, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, and other explosions. I did not include gun violence. Second, I did not count attacks on military or police checkposts - though I did count attacks conducted on military or security personnel if they happened to take place in cities or while they were travelling. Third, I did not include attacks on militants and their holdouts. Fourth, these numbers are not 100% foolproof. In particular, casualty counts can sometimes be misleading, particularly since I relied on news reports the day after these attacks. Often a number of injured people die, but take longer than 24 hours to do so. When I did find revised estimates of casualties, I edited the figure for a particular attack, but this happened on only two occasions.
Hereunder is a table with the date, location, and number of casualties of each attack. In hindsight, I should have added another column for "type of attack" (i.e. suicide bomber, roadside bomb etc) but I simply forgot, and now I'm too lazy to go back and add it. If you're curious, you can click on any of the links provided to learn more about each attack.
| Date | Location | Dead | Injured |
| | 24 | 73 | |
| | 0 | 2 | |
| | 9 | 52 | |
| | 12 | 25 | |
| Landi Kotal | 2 | 5 | |
| | 0 | 6 | |
| | 8 | 47 | |
| Charsadda | 25 | 51 | |
| Mingora | 2 | 1 | |
| Khar | 3 | 1 | |
| Mach | 0 | 5 | |
| | 1 | 3 | |
| Parachinar | 47 | 110 | |
| Mingora | 2 | 14 | |
| | 0 | 3 | |
| | 4 | 1 | |
| | 1 | 12 | |
| Swat | 14 | 12 | |
| | 8 | 20 | |
| Mansehra | 4 | 8 | |
| | 4 | 7 | |
| Parachinar | 0 | 4 | |
| Mingora | 45 | 80 | |
| Darra Adamkhel | 42 | 58 | |
| | 6 | 8 | |
| | 0 | 9 | |
| | 4 | 21 | |
| | 1 | 4 | |
| | 1 | 2 | |
| | 0 | 8 | |
| | 26 | 175 | |
| Mingora | 4 | 2 | |
| | 1 | 10 | |
| TOTAL | 300 | 839 | |
That's 33 attacks in 75 days this year, working out to an average of one attack every 55 hours. Also notice how many attacks there have been in Balochistan. Sometimes people forget that there is a low-level civil war in that province - these numbers should dispel any such comfortable illusion. Anyway, I hope people find this compilation useful. We'll keep updating this table as time goes on; there is little doubt we will have many opportunities to do so.
Labels:
Pakistan
4 comments:
Nice work dude. How long did it take you? And process wise did you just go through each date on Dawn?
took me more than an hour. and yeah i just read the front page of dawn's website for every issue thus far this year.
This is really great and a useful reality check for people who are still in this constant state of denial at home. I mean it's hard because you want your life to go on, but it's amazing when I encounter people that are like, "Oh it's going to get better," etc. I wonder what will cause a real wake up call in Pakistan.
If it's cool, will link this info to my site as well - great work!
@ Ahsan
Nicely done dude. Seriously though, shouldn't you be working on the MA by now!
@ Changing up Pakistan
I cuoldn't agree with you more. I can understand that it is natural to defend one's home (in this case country) but it's gotten absolutely absurd. I am absolutely sick and tired of seemingly intelligent people saying stuff like "Pakistan isn't that unsafe, it just gets bad press" or "Karachi's got crime but so has every big city in the world." (And before anyone mentions ghettos in American cities I would ask them to try and visit Lyari)
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