Statistics on Deaths in the RA and NK Armed Forces in 2023
From January to December 2023, Peace Dialogue NGO managed to obtain information on 82 death cases registered in the RA and NK Armed Forces.
During the reporting period, 19 servicemen were killed in a ceasefire violation. 9 servicemen committed suicide. 19 servicemen died from fatal incidents. Health problems caused death for 13 servicemen. 17 servicemen died due to violation of safety rules. 4 servicemen became victims of murder committed by fellow servicemen. 1 soldier died as a result of inaction of authorities.
According to the information provided by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Armenia, in the period from 1 January to 31 December 2023, 29 out of 82 deaths of soldiers and contract servicemen of the RA and NK Armed Forces were registered as not related to military service.
Below, we introduce the numbers of deaths registered in 2023 according to the causes of death. It should be noted that the causes of deaths in this report are based on open source case studies or the information provided by state authorities in response to Peace Dialogue’s inquiries. It is noteworthy that even the information provided by the Prosecutor’s Office in some cases does not clearly indicate the cause of the death. In those cases, the organization presents the cause of the death based on the article of the criminal case initiated on the incident.
Number of deaths registered in 2023 according to the causes of death
Out of 82 registered incidents, 71 took place in the RA Armed Forces and 11 occurred in the NK Armed Forces.
Place of death
For 48 of the registered cases, the primary source of information was the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Ministry, while the information on the other 32 cases was received from other sources (mostly the information was received in response to an inquiry to the Prosecutor General’s Office).
Primary source of information
By comparing the number of deaths registered in the Armed Forces in the last five years, it becomes obvious that the highest number of deaths occurred due to fatal incidents (106 cases), health problems (78 cases), and ceasefire violations (72 cases). It should be noted that deaths due to fatal incidents and health problems are generally mentioned by the Prosecutor’s Office as cases not related to military duty.
The number of registered deaths in the course of the last five years
The chart illustrates that over the last five years, there has been a noteworthy increase in the recorded deaths due to ceasefire violations.
Comparison of the number of deaths in the armed forces of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the last five years
It should be noted that the information presented does not include the data of servicemen who died as a result of the aggression carried out by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
The analysis was funded by the Black Sea Trust, a regional cooperation project under the German Marshall Fund.
Posted 25 January, 2024
