Thus, the line of armed confrontation takes place within the Donetsk-Luhansk
urban area, which, in addition to the two regional centers, Donetsk (950 thousand
inhabitants) and Luhansk (415 thousand inhabitants) consists of a dozen large and
medium-sized cities. Within the front zone there were millions of inhabitants. The main
military operations of the war in the Syrian Arab Republic occurred in the suburbs of
Damascus (1,750 thousand inhabitants). In the cities of Aleppo (1,800 thousand
inhabitants), Rakka (300 thousand inhabitants), Deir-e-Zor (210 thousand inhabitants).
For almost nine months, the government forces of Iraq and the allies, with the support
of an international coalition led by the United States, drove Islamic state militants from
Mosul (1,600 thousand inhabitants) [9].
The fact that draws our attention is that as per data of [10], by 2050, the urban
population of the Earth might reach more than 66% of total population. Herewith, the
increase of number of urban residents will be, mainly, in the most unstable and
conflicting regions of the world.
The fourth tendency is the expansion in the number of direct losses among the
civilians (the category is established by the International Law of War [11]) regarding
to the total number of casualties. This, [12] states that during wars of early 20th century
the correlation of losses of troops to civilians was 1:8, and in wars of modern times,
this value reached 8:1.
During studies, we analyzed the peculiarities of confrontation, the nature of
combat losses and the causes of civilian casualties in irregular wars and military
conflicts in Donbas (Ukraine) [13], Afghanistan [14], Iraq [15], Syria [16-17], and
Yemen [18]. The correlation of casualties among civilians to combat casualties of
regular armed formations is shown in Figure 1.
It should be noted that the estimates of the number of casualties during armed
conflicts are usually based on body count reported by official sources, non-
governmental organizations and groups, as well as on the data of the sample method
survey along which the victims are learned retrospectively by interviewing relatives
and members of households. Such methods are characterized by errors. According to
the World Health Organization [19], about 53% of deaths in the world are not recorded
and therefore not considered. As a result, the available estimates of human casualties
in armed conflicts vary considerably.
The international laws of war [20, 21] protect civilians. The issue of increasing
civilian casualties in wars and armed conflicts is in the purview of international
organizations such as the UN, the OSCE. But numerous facts show that in wars and
armed conflicts the international law of war with regard to the civilian population is
often ignored by all of their actors. Therefore, the search of ways of prevention is on
the agenda of politicians, scholars, etc.
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