If a soldier loses his mind as a direct result of being deployed on Op Banner, and he takes his rifle and shoots & kills another soldier who was trying to calm him down, and then is shot and killed in turn by another soldier, does that count as two deaths due to the conflict?
Believe me - it happened.
Or how about a soldier killed in a road accident when he swerved to avoid a bunch of kids throwing missiles at him & his vehicle? Aid was unable to get to him for some time because they were prevented by rioters - who had taken the place of the kids.
Or another soldier who fell from the back of a lorry and was run over by the army vehicle following too closely behind? (as per normal practice for vehicles in NI)
The RoH compiled by NIVA includes ALL security forces deaths unless it can be shown to have been through natural causes NOT related to deployment. So far we have only found one case of a heart attack that we cannot put down to deployment. Far more traffic accidents occured in NI involving security forces than occured in BAOR for instance, so it can be assumed that it was due to the circumstances of their job and the stress associated with it. The same applies to suicides, of which there were a few.
We admit to bias in this matter. I assume all statistics are biased, even if unintentionally.