Does the Baghdad morgue publish it's data?

March 15, 2007 6:39 PM

Does the Baghdad morgue publish its data?

News reports from Iraq often quote the number of bodies arriving at the Baghdad morgue on a daily basis. Are all the morgue's daily figures available somewhere (other than Iraq Body Count, or other groups that are just aggregating media reports)?

posted by thrako to Law & Government (1 answer total)

Best answer: They don't seem to publish them online, if that's what you mean. Here are some explanations of how people get the numbers.

• they send them to the UN
• The facility manager speaks to the media, or answers media requests. (though this article says that employees are forbidden from talking to reporters and that local reporters are denied access)
• This article says whoever controls the morgue sets its information policies.
• Health ministry officials may share the information
• Sometimes the morgue will call major media outlets

In all those cases, it seems that getting decent reliable numbers is sort of hit or miss.
posted by jessamyn at 7:15 PM on March 15, 2007