For over five years, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) has monitored English language media coverage of explosive violence around the world. In our latest report, Patterns of Harm, AOAV presents data from over 188,325 recorded deaths and injuries – a result of 12,566 incidents of explosive weapons use between 2011 and 2015.
The most compelling pattern of harm highlighted in the data was that, year in and year out, when explosive weapons were used in populated areas, nine times out of ten those killed or wounded were civilians. AOAV strongly calls States to politically commit to refraining from using explosive weapons in populated areas given this predictable pattern of harm.