ONLINE WAR MEMORIALS

Info, rationale and FAQ

The online memorial collection (OMC) is a collection of links to websites which include lists of soldiers and civilians who were killed or subjected to forced disappearance in connection with armed conflict. These lists have been compiled by nation-states, non-state actors, human rights organisations, individuals or interest groups. Not all were created with the intention to function as memorials, strictly speaking. Quite a few, and specially in the case of civilian deaths, were compiled by human rights groups or similar organisations for reports or commissions with the intent to gather evidence, or truth-finding. Such reports may of course function as memorials of sorts for relatives to the victims, and give recognition to their loved one's fates in regions where impunity for such crimes is more common than not. Many websites in this collection were however published by the military branch of governments. They are typically clearly stated as memorials in order to honor the fallen or the martyrs.

The criteria for a website to be included in the OMC are ...

• that the data is reliable and well documented

• that the data is available on the internet

• that the list includes the names of those killed (even though more detailed accounts of the death, such as date, place and circumstance is to prefer)

• that the deaths occured because of acts of war that are related directly to one of the wars in the list of wars that started after the end of World War II in 1945, either during the course of the war, or as a part of the run up to, or the aftermath of, that war (I've for example in some cases included massacres of enemy soldiers and civilians that took place after cessation of hostilities, or massacres that preceded a declaration of war)

• that the list is fairly comprehensive (the shortest list in the collection is 27 names)

• that the list do not overlap with other similar lists in the collection so that the same name appears twice

It should be noted that I've made exceptions to these rules on several occasions. Here are a few examples.

• The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an example of a source that I've included even though the public data have been anonymized.

• There are several lists which are poorly documented but have been included since they're the only available source for that conflict that I've found.

• There are some lists that may include overlapping data.

• There are a few lists that are quite loosely connected to a war in the list of wars, and should rather be seen as separate instances of onesided violence.

• There are a few lists that have been included from archived versions where the original list have disappeared from the internet.

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