To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 7 December 2006, Official Report, column 1096W, on casualty reporting, what progress has been made on reconciling casualty data for operations in (a) Sierra Leone and (b) the Balkans since May 1997. (139622)

[holding answer 4 June 2007]: Historical data on fatalities and casualties for major ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have now been reconciled and validated. This information is published and updated regularly and can be found at http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/Operations Factsheets, along with details of fatalities for operations in the Balkans.

Work to date on the compilation and reconciliation of historical casualty data from the Balkans and from other theatres (including Sierra Leone), has indicated that further data collection and analysis is required in order to provide a sufficiently validated product and the focus is on compiling data over the period since January 2001. When this work is complete it will be placed in the public domain.