Researchers show: the number of war dead will double in 2022

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According to scientists at Uppsala University’s Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), at least 237,000 people were killed in military conflicts in 2022. This corresponds to a 97 percent increase on the previous year and the highest number since 1994, the year of the genocide in Rwanda. The number of active conflicts around the world remains at an all-time high. The researchers plan to publish their results in the July issue of the Journal of Peace Research.

While there has been significant de-escalation in Yemen and Afghanistan, the situation has escalated dramatically in Ethiopia and Ukraine in particular, analyst Shawn Davies explains. These two wars alone resulted in at least 180,000 war deaths – and these are low estimates that are likely to be revised upwards significantly as more information becomes available.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The civil war in Ethiopia between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the government has been raging since late 2020 and ended in November 2022 with a ceasefire and negotiations for a peace agreement.

It is widely believed that the Russian war in Ukraine was the bloodiest conflict of 2022, Davies said. In Ethiopia, even more people have died. Based on the UCDP data, the Oslo peace research institute Prio also announced on Wednesday that more than 100,000 people will have died in Ethiopia in 2022 and more than 81,000 in Russia’s offensive war against Ukraine.

The UCDP is considered to be the oldest collection of conflict data in the world. In 2022, it recorded 55 different conflicts with state involvement. Add non-state conflicts, for example between rebel groups or rival drug cartels in Mexico, to 82. Conflicts in which at least 1,000 combat-related deaths occur in a calendar year are classified by the researchers as war.

(SDA)

Source: Blick