Dagestan: 116 victims of armed conflict in the first quarter of 2012

From the start of the year until March 31, 2012, at least 116 people fell victim to the armed confrontation of law enforcers and militants, including 83 casualties and at least 33 wounded persons. These are the results of calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its our own information and other open sources.

During the reporting period, 19 civilians were killed in Dagestan in the armed conflict. The death toll includes 27 law enforcers and 37 persons, involved, according to law enforcement bodies, in the armed underground.

The list of wounded persons includes four civilians and at least 28 law enforcers. One man registered in police records as a militant was wounded during detention.

The above statistics can not reflect with 100-percent accuracy the number of victims in each of the categories described in the review. Not all the data gets into news reports. It is not always possible to check the reliability of statements made by law enforcement bodies.

The data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Dagestan on the victims of the conflict differ from the calculations of the "Caucasian Knot": According to the MIA, in the first quarter of 2012, the republic had 78 casualties (16 civilians, 26 power agents and 36 militants) and 32 wounded persons (3 civilians, 28 law enforcers and one militant wounded at detention) - in total 110 people.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot", in 2011, at least 824 people fell victim to the armed conflict in Dagestan, including 413 casualties and 411 wounded persons. As compared with 2010, the 2011 count of victims was 20 percent higher - in 2010 there were 685 victims in total.