A woman walks past the scene of a bomb attack in Baghdad Jan. 29, 2007. A bomb in a small bus killed one civilian and wounded five others, police said. (REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz)
The U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 387,072 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars. Civilian deaths have also resulted from U.S. post-9/11 military operations in Somalia and other countries.
People living in the war zones have been killed in their homes, in markets, and on roadways. They have been killed by bombs, bullets, fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and drones. Civilians die at checkpoints, as they are run off the road by military vehicles, when they step on mines or cluster bombs, as they collect wood or tend to their fields, and when they are kidnapped and executed for purposes of revenge or intimidation. They are killed by the United States, by its allies, and by insurgents and sectarians in the civil wars spawned by the invasions.
War can also lead to death weeks or months after battles. Many times more people in the warzones have died as a result of battered infrastructure and poor health conditions arising from the wars than directly from its violence. For example, war refugees often lose access to a stable food supply or to their jobs, resulting in increased malnutrition and vulnerability to disease.
The Costs of War reports document the direct and indirect toll that war takes on civilians and their livelihoods, including the lingering effects of war death and injury on survivors and their families.
387,072 civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the U.S. post-9/11 wars.
(Page updated as of September 2021)