Citation

Bhatti JA, Mehmood A, Shahid M, Bhatti SA, Akhtar U, Razzak JA. Int. J. Inj. Control Safe. Promot. 2011; 18(3): 205-211.

Affiliation

Department of Emergency Medicine, The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17457300.2011.555558

PMID

21462019

Abstract

In this study, we assessed the epidemiological patterns of suicide terrorism in the civilian population of Pakistan. Information about suicide terrorism-related events, deaths and injuries was extracted from the South-Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP) for the period from 2002 to October 2009. Of 198 events, civilians were involved in 194 events. Civilians accounted for 74.1% (N = 2017) of those who died and 93.8% (N = 6129) of those who were injured. In nine districts, mortality rates were more than one death per 100,000 inhabitants per year. The yearly trend showed a shift of attack targets from foreigners and sectarian targets in 2002-2005 to security forces or general public in 2006-2009. Attacks on public installations (mosques) or political gatherings resulted in a significantly greater (P ≤ 0.02) number of deaths (22 vs. 8) and injuries (59 vs. 24) per event compared with security installations. These results show that prevention might focus on political negotiation with armed groups and that appropriate measures should be taken to protect mosques and political gatherings.

Language: en