The Sri Lankan civil war was very costly, killing an estimated 80,000-100,000 people between 1982 and 2009.[1] The deaths include 27,639 Tamil fighters, more than 21,066 Sri Lankan soldiers, 1000 Sri Lankan police, 1500 Indian soldiers, and tens of thousands of civilians.[citation needed] The Uppsala Conflict Data Program, a university-based data collection program considered to be "one of the most accurate and well-used data-sources on global armed conflicts"[2] provides free data to the public and has divided Sri Lanka's conflicts into groups based on the actors involved. It collectively reported that between 1990 and 2009 between 59,193-75,601[3] people were killed in Sri Lanka during various three types of organized armed conflict: "State-based" conflicts, those that involved the Government of Sri Lanka against rebel groups(LTTE and the JVP), "Non-state" conflicts, those conflicts that did not involve the government of Sri Lanka (e.g. LTTE vs. LTTE-Karuna Faction, and LTTE vs. PLOTE), as well as "One-sided" violence, that involved deliberate attacks against civilians perpetrated by either LTTE or the Government of Sri Lanka.[4]
Minister of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said on an interview with state television that 23,790 Sri Lankan military personnel were killed since 1981 (it was not specified if police or other non armed forces personnel were included in this particular figure).
From the August 2006 recapture of the Mavil Aru reservoir until the formal declaration of the cessation of hostilities (on May 18), 6261 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed and 29,551 were wounded.[5]
The Sri Lankan military estimates that up to 22,000 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in the last three years of the conflict.[6]
The final five months of the civil war saw the heaviest civilian casualties. The UN, based on credible witness evidence from aid agencies and civilians evacuated from the Safe Zone by sea, estimated that 6,500 civilians were killed and another 14,000 injured between mid-January 2009, when the Safe Zone was first declared, and mid-April 2009.[7][8] There are no official casualty figures after this period but estimates of the death toll for the final four months of the civil war (mid-January to mid-May) range from 15,000 to 20,000.[9][10] A US State Department report has suggested that the actual casualty figures were probably much higher than the UN's estimates and that significant numbers of casualties weren't recorded.[11] A former UN official has claimed that up to 40,000 civilians may have been killed in the final stages of the civil war.[12]
↑Uppsala Conflict Data Program, Low-high estimates for state based fighting between Government of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and JVP (low:61-high:61)Government of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and LTTE (Low:56,219-high:70,375), deliberate killings of civilians by Government of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) (low:368-high:1,666) and LTTE (low:2,252-high:3,110) and fighting between LTTE and LTTE-Karuna Faction (low:192-high:294) and LTTE and PLOTE (low:101-high:103), http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=144®ionSelect=6-Central_and_Southern_Asia#, viewed 2013-05-03