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Civilian and military deaths during the Second Indochina War

Estimates of casualties of the Vietnam War vary widely. Estimates can include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The war lasted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial bombing and ground fighting. Civilian deaths caused by both sides amounted to a significant percentage of total deaths. These were caused by artillery bombardments, extensive aerial bombing of North and South Vietnam, the use of firepower in military operations conducted in heavily populated areas, assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed, the most prominent being the Huế Massacre and the Mỹ Lai Massacre.

R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000, plus another 50,000 killed in North Vietnam. Rummel's mid level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants killed by PAVN/VC. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 1967–1972. About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. During the peak war years, another scholar Guenter Lewy attributed almost a third of civilian deaths to the VC. Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 1965–72 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants. These numbers do not include civilian and State of Vietnam/ARVN military deaths resulting from the communist collectivization and land reform in North Vietnam and mass internment, the refugee crisis and subsequent exodus of Vietnamese people after the Fall of Saigon.

According to RJ Rummel, from 1964 to 1975, an estimated 1,500 people died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed. In Quảng Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. This totals, from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam during the (Diệm era), and 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam in the post Diệm era), excluding PAVN forces killed by the ARVN in combat. Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000–310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter guerrilla mass killings" by U. S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war. Operating under the direction of the CIA and other US and South Vietnamese Intel organizations and carried out by ARVN units alongside US advisers was the Phoenix Program, intended to neutralise the VC political infrastructure, whom were the civilian administration of the Viet Cong/Provisional Revolutionary Government via infiltration, capture, counter terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The program resulted in an estimated 26,000 to 41,000 killed, with an unknown number possibly being innocent civilians. Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from US bombing range from 30,000–65,000. American bombing in Cambodia is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants. 18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange, some of which was contaminated with Dioxin, was sprayed by the U. S. military over more than 10% of Southern Vietnam as part of the U. S. herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam's government claimed that 400,000 people were killed or maimed as a result of after effects, and that 500,000 children were born with birth defects. and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next generation birth defects in Vietnamese peoples. The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable. For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation. The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed". All individuals killed in declared free fire zones, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces This might partially explain the discrepancies between recovered weapons and body count figures, along with exaggeration, although the NVA and VC also went to great lengths to recover weapons from the battlefield. Seven massacres officially confirmed by the American side. My Lai (4) and My Khe (4) (collectively the My Lai Massacre) claimed the largest number of victims with 420 and 90 respectively, and in five other places a total of about 100 civilians were executed. Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of Đức Pho in Quảng Ngãi Province in the summer of 1968 (14 victims), another in Bình Định Province on 20 July 1969 (25 victims). Tiger Force, a special operations force, probably murdered hundreds of civilians during a 6 month period in 1967. According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty one operations either on their own or alongside their allies. Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U. S. troops. One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many My Lais".

The ROK Capital Division reportedly perpetrated the Bình An/Tây Vinh massacre in February/March 1966. The 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Binh Tai Massacre on 9 October 1966. In December 1966, the Blue Dragon Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Bình Hòa massacre. The Second Marine Brigade perpetrated the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre on 12 February 1968. South Korean Marines reportedly perpetrated the Hà My massacre on 25 February 1968. According to a study conducted in 1968 by a Quaker funded Vietnamese speaking American couple, Diane and Michael Jones, there were at least 12 mass killings committed by South Korean forces that approached the scale of the My Lai Massacre, with reports of thousands of routine murders of civilians, primarily the elderly, women and children. A separate study was carried out by RAND Corporation employee Terry Rambo, who conducted interviews in 1970 on reported Korean atrocities in ARVN/civilian areas. Widespread reports of deliberate mass killings by Korean forces alleged that they were the result of systemic, deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds. Another Marine commander, Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr., added, "we had a big problem with atrocities attributed to them, which I sent on down to Saigon."

The ARVN suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths. According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. and 1,000,000 surrendered or captured. Prior to the 1975 spring offensive, at least 5,336 ARVN were captured, being released in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Accords.

Unexploded ordnance continue to detonate and kill people today. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance and claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations. Agent Orange and similar chemical defoliants have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including among the US Air Force crew that handled them. The government of Vietnam says that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it; these figures include the children of people who were exposed. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or suffer health problems due to Agent Orange exposure. On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical from part of Da Nang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. Da Nang was the primary storage site of the chemical. Two other cleanup sites being reviewed by the United States and Vietnam are Biên Hòa Air Base, in the southern province of Đồng Nai—a 'hotspot' for dioxin—and Phù Cát Air Base in Bình Định Province, according to U. S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. The Vietnamese newspaper Nhân Dân reported in 2012 that the U. S. government was providing $41 million to the project, which aimed to reduce the contamination level in 73,000 m³ of soil by late 2016. Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. The number of these "boat people" leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totalled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over crowded boats, and storms. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. The boat people's first destinations were the Southeast Asian locations of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. From refugee camps in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in more developed countries. Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.