The Guardian Mapped Every War Death In Iraq For Seven Years. Here’s What It Looks Like.
Australia's going back to war in Iraq. It's worth remembering how many people died in the last one.
Australia’s involvement in the latest Iraq War/conflict/thing continues to grow; last week reports started coming through that Australian bombing raids against ISIS have claimed their first casualties, while earlier today Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced that Australia will deploy 200 special forces soldiers, putting the lie to the government’s oft-repeated assertion that Australia’s commitment wouldn’t include “boots on the ground”.
Given that we’re seemingly gearing up to head right back into Iraq only eleven months after getting out of there for the first time in eleven years, it’s worth looking at how the Iraq wars have panned out out for the Iraqis themselves. Back in 2010 the Guardian published details of a Wikileaks data dump containing information on every recorded war-related death in Iraq from 2004 to 2009, including superimposing each death onto a Google Map of Iraq. The map hasn’t been updated since 2010, which means it doesn’t include any deaths caused by the conflict with ISIS, but it’s begun doing the rounds on social media again because it illustrates just how devastating the conflict has been.
To give you an idea, here’s what Baghdad looks like:
To clarify, those red dots don’t signify individual deaths; they represent instances in which at least one person died. Everything from one-on-one shootings to firefights to car bombs, mapped street by street and with details of each “incident” recorded in each dot; how many people died, how they died, and what side they were on, if any.
It’s oddly fascinating in a ghoulish kind of way; to see which suburbs and cities have suffered the most and which ones, for whatever reason, have had fewer deaths. There are often clusters of dots at major landmarks and intersections, but there are plenty scattered around in suburban streets as well; one residential street corner I found by idly clicking around was covered with dots, for no discernible reason.
The map covers Iraq as a whole, and it quickly becomes obvious when you start scrolling around that the war has hit Iraq’s smaller towns just as badly as the capital. This is the city of Mosul, in the country’s north:
This is Kirkuk, in the predominantly Kurdish northeast:
This is Baqubah, a smaller city outside Baghdad:
And this is Basrah, in the south:
You can look at the map in its entirety here.
–
All images via The Guardian Datablog.