Methodolgy Used to Determine Areas of Concern

The conflicts highlighted on GI-Net's "Areas of Concern" map are selected based on two criteria:

• the extent to which mass atrocities are occurring
• the extent to which civilians are being targeted

Our research relies exclusively on publicly-available information from expert organizations and individuals and/or entities that have been on the ground in the conflict region, and have conducted interviews and primary source analyses. Important sources include reports by Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, Refugees International and humanitarian aid organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

With available information from these sources on nearly 90 different crises, we then determined which of them currently appear to include systematic or targeted atrocities against civilians on a scale that stands out relative to the other crises considered. We do not believe it is possible to pick a specific threshold for defining "large-scale," and even if such a threshold was chosen, the data are not available to determine if every given crisis would meet this level or not. The crises that belong to this group of substantially larger-scale atrocities are those we consider to be current areas of concern.

In our assessment of how civilians have been targeted by mass atrocities, we relied on the following indicators:

1. levels of mortality, drawing from a number of different sources
2. levels of forced displacement, largely relying on Internal Displacement Monitoring Center numbers
3. the frequency and intensity of human rights violations committed against civilians, as reported by expert and relief organizations, as well as the media

Unfortunately, there is a dearth of meaningful reporting on a number of conflicts that are of grave concern to GI-Net. Until there is sufficient information to prove ongoing large-scale atrocities against civilians, these crises will not appear on the map.