UK-based group releases list of drone victims

ISLAMABAD: A UK-based independent organisation launched on Tuesday a project aimed at identifying the victims of drone strikes in Pakistan and released its first list of over 550 victims — both civilians and militants. The list, released by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on its website, contains the names of 295 civilians, 255 alleged militants (74 of them are classified as senior commanders), 95 children (counted in the civilian total) and only two women. The project, titled ‘Naming the Dead’, builds on the bureau’s two-year work tracking drone strikes in Pakistan and the number of people reportedly killed. In its research the bureau has found that at least 2,500 people, including 400 civilians, have reportedly been killed. But almost nothing is known about the identities of the dead. The Obama administration has claimed that drones are a highly precise weapon that target Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, while causing almost no civilian harm. But it does not publish its own account of who it believes has been killed. The bureau’s journalists have revisited all media reports, court documents and other sources to compile data which identified 568 individuals by name. But an estimated four out of five drone victims are not named in the available sources. At the launch of the project, the bureau will publish case studies of 20 individuals — both civilians and alleged militants. Over the coming months, it will extend its research to add to the list names and biographical details of more individuals. The bureau expressed the hope that families and friends of those killed in drone strikes would come forward to corroborate, contradict or offer additional details to help build a full picture of the victims. “Reporting from Pakistan’s tribal regions is challenging and there are many individuals whose name is the only thing we know of them. Sometimes we only have part of a name,” says the bureau. “Casualty recording efforts such as ‘Naming the Dead’ are an important step towards avoiding future conflicts,” says Hamit Dardagan, co-director of the Every Casualty Campaign which calls for every death in conflict to be recorded. “Casualty recording is a way of recognising the humanity of people who have been killed, and making not just their death but also the manner of their death part of the public record, which is important if one is to prevent these kinds of deaths happening again.” Christopher Hird, managing editor of the bureau, said: “The bureau’s drones project has played an important part in helping to inform the debate about the use of drones in warfare. Until now we have concentrated on getting the most reliable numbers for those killed. But in the end this is about people — men, women and children; civilians and militants. “Naming the Dead aims to both put names to these numbers and also to give fuller biographical details of those who have died so that the public and politicians can better understand the complexity of what is happening on the ground in Pakistan.”