Report: Highest Conflict Deaths Since Rwanda Genocide Moment of truth: Kevin Spacey to appear in court in London today

Since the genocide in Rwanda, there have not been as many deaths from armed conflict as in the past year. This is evident from the Global Peace Index of the think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), which was published in London on Wednesday. According to this report, 238,000 people worldwide died as a result of hostilities last year. In 1994 alone, the genocide in Rwanda cost the lives of 800,000 people.

In the Global Peace Index, the IEP experts assess the level of peace in 163 countries around the world using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators. From this, they rank countries from the most peaceful to the least peaceful.

All in all, according to the index, the world became less peaceful in 2022 for the ninth year in a row. The experts noted an increase in conflicts in 79 countries, including Ethiopia, Myanmar, Ukraine, Israel and South Africa. In addition, armed conflicts are increasingly taking on a cross-border character. According to the report, 91 countries were involved in external conflicts last year, up from 58 in 2008.

By far the conflict that claimed the most victims last year was the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia. According to the report, more than 100,000 people were killed in fighting there by 2022. At least twice as many died from disease and starvation as a result of clashes between Ethiopian and Eritrean government forces and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebels.

In second place is the Russian offensive war in Ukraine. According to the IEP, at least 82,000 people died there last year. The IEP experts also estimate that 65 percent of Ukrainian men between the ages of 20 and 24 have fled or died in the war. More than 30 percent of the Ukrainian population became refugees at home or abroad.

According to IEP founder Steve Killelea, the fact that the Tigray conflict is barely noticed compared to the war in Ukraine is partly due to it being geographically further away from a European perspective. In addition, the Ethiopian government has suppressed media coverage and severely restricted access to the Internet.

In addition to the number of deaths from internal and international conflict, the indicators considered in the Global Peace Index also include the number of homicides, the degree of militarization, arms exports, terrorism, political instability and the number of prisoners.

The experts also estimate the economic costs of armed conflict. They amounted to 17.5 trillion dollars (about 16 trillion euros) last year. This corresponds to 13 percent of the global gross domestic product.

In terms of economic consequences, the IEP experts also ventured to predict a hypothetical scenario: an economic blockade of Taiwan by China would have twice the impact on the global economy of the 2008 financial and economic crisis. Germany would be an important trading partner for both hard-hit countries, according to the assessment.

“After Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and now Ukraine, it is clear that even the most powerful armies cannot prevail against a well-equipped local population,” Killelea said in a statement. “War is now almost impossible to win and has become a growing economic burden,” said the IEP founder.

The Federal Republic also stands out in the report as a major arms exporter. Five countries account for three-quarters of all global arms exports: the US, Russia, Germany, France and China.

According to the index, Iceland, Denmark and Ireland are the three most peaceful countries in the world. At the bottom are, in ascending order, Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria. Germany is in 15th place and has improved two places compared to last year. Switzerland ranks tenth and Austria fifth. (sda/dpa)