Millions have died in conflicts since the Cold War; most of them in Africa and intrastate conflicts
Deaths in the Middle East and deaths from violence targeting civilians have also been common.
Many people live in countries that have been free from conflict for decades and have lived relatively safe lives as a result. But people in other countries have endured large-scale and long-term conflict. In countries like Syria, hundreds of thousands have died from conflict over recent decades, and millions more have been displaced.
People also experience very different types of conflict. Ukrainians endure a war with another country, Russia. Ethiopians suffer from conflicts between their government and rebel groups. Mexicans are caught between non-state armed groups while their government is absent. And Rwandans became the target of their government and non-state armed groups in the 1994 genocide.
To reduce the deaths and suffering caused by armed conflicts, we need to understand these differences. In this article, I explore where people died in armed conflicts between 1989 and 2023, and what fighting this entailed.
How do conflict deaths differ by world region and conflict type?
Breaking down conflict deaths by region and conflict type demonstrates which parts of the world are most affected and which forms of organized violence claim the most lives.
The chart shows the total number of conflict deaths for each region and conflict type.
More than half of conflict deaths since 1989 have occurred in Africa
The first bar shows that globally, an estimated 3.8 million people — combatants and civilians — died due to fighting in armed conflicts between 1989 (the first year for which data is available) and 2023.
This number comes from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), which uses news reports, other contemporary sources, and academic research to count the deaths in armed conflicts worldwide.1
The data does not include deaths due to disease and starvation resulting from conflicts, which can make the death toll much larger.
The chart’s second bar shows that more than half of these deaths occurred in Africa, where 2 million people were killed.
The Middle East and Asia were the next most affected regions, with approximately 680,000 and 580,000 deaths.
Europe and the Americas saw the fewest deaths, with around 290,000 and 220,000 deaths, respectively.
You can explore the data by year in this chart.
When we consider that some regions have larger populations than others, we see that Africa and the Middle East have had the highest death rates: theirs are ten times higher than rates in other world regions.
A closer look at the countries with the highest number of deaths shows that 800,000 of the deaths occurred in Rwanda alone, followed by more than 400,000 in Syria and more than 380,000 in Ethiopia.2
Most deaths come from intrastate conflicts and one-sided violence
The chart’s third bar shows that some forms of conflict are responsible for many more deaths than others:
Intrastate conflicts — those between a state and a non-state armed group — resulted in 1.9 million deaths. That’s half of all conflict deaths since 1989.
One-sided violence — a state or non-state armed group targeting civilians — caused about one-third of conflict deaths, around 1.2 million deaths.
Non-state conflicts — those between non-state armed groups — accounted for 370,000 deaths, or 1 in 10 deaths.
And interstate conflicts — those between states — caused the fewest deaths, with 300,000 deaths, or 1 in 12 deaths.
You can explore changes over time in this chart.
Importantly, not all forms of conflict are equally common: non-state conflicts caused relatively few deaths even though they recently were the most common form of conflict, whereas interstate conflicts are rare but highly deadly.
How do conflict types differ across world regions?
Breaking down conflict deaths by region and type at the same time reveals that the dominant forms of conflict differ across regions.
The chart shows, by region, the share of deaths each conflict type is responsible for.
Africa
One-sided violence was the deadliest form of conflict in Africa, accounting for over half of its deaths between 1989 and 2023. A significant portion of these deaths resulted from a single act of violence: the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Intrastate conflicts caused about a third of all deaths, particularly in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea.
Non-state and interstate conflicts were less deadly, each contributing fewer than 10% of deaths.
Middle East
Intrastate conflicts were the leading cause of conflict deaths in the Middle East, accounting for four in five deaths. Syria was especially affected, alongside Iraq and Yemen.
Non-state conflicts contributed to fewer deaths, around one in ten.
And one-sided violence and interstate conflicts accounted for even fewer deaths, with about one in fifteen and one in twenty deaths.
Asia and Oceania
Intrastate conflicts dominated Asia and Oceania even more, accounting for nearly 90% of conflict deaths between 1989 and 2023. Afghanistan was most affected, experiencing several wars over the decades.
One-sided violence claimed most of the other deaths, making up almost one in ten deaths, while deaths in non-state and interstate conflicts were rare, resulting in around 3% and 1% of deaths.
Europe
Interstate and intrastate conflicts were the leading causes of conflict deaths in Europe, accounting for 56% and 36% of fatalities, respectively.
Virtually all interstate conflict deaths were from a single war: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since 2022.
Many intrastate conflict deaths occurred in the early 1990s in Southeastern Europe, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
One-sided violence was responsible for less than 10% of deaths, while non-state conflicts caused few deaths, making up just over 1% of deaths.
Americas
Non-state conflicts overshadowed other forms of conflict in the Americas, accounting for more than two-thirds of all deaths, primarily due to fighting between criminal organizations. Mexico was most affected, with a large increase in conflict deaths in recent years.
Intrastate conflicts made up nearly a fifth of deaths, especially from conflict in Colombia in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
One-sided violence claimed about one in ten of all conflict deaths, while interstate conflicts were rarer than in any other world region, with fewer than 1,000 deaths in total.
Understanding conflict patterns can help us make conflicts less common and deadly
The data shows that conflict deaths and types vary significantly across world regions.
Understanding the extent of conflicts across regions is crucial to help us know where to work for peace. It helps us target humanitarian aid and diplomatic efforts while conflicts are ongoing, as well as reconstruction work and reconciliation projects when the fighting stops.
Understanding the forms of conflicts helps us know how to work for peace. It aids us in identifying whether international negotiations, weapons transfers, peacekeeping missions, stronger states, more inclusive governments, or more constrained executives are needed.
Acknowledgments
I thank Edouard Mathieu, Hannah Ritchie, and Max Roser for their helpful comments and ideas on drafts of this article.
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Endnotes
Davies, Shawn, Garoun Engström, Therese Pettersson, and Magnus Öberg. 2024. Organized violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups. Journal of Peace Research 61(4): 673-693.
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg, and Håvard Strand. 2002. Armed conflict 1946–2001: A new dataset. Journal of Peace Research 39(5): 615–637.
You can learn more about UCDP in our article on how researchers measure armed conflicts and deaths in them.
You can explore countries over time in our Countries in Conflict Data Explorer.
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Bastian Herre (2024) - “Millions have died in conflicts since the Cold War; most of them in Africa and intrastate conflicts” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/conflict-deaths-breakdown' [Online Resource]BibTeX citation
@article{owid-conflict-deaths-breakdown,
author = {Bastian Herre},
title = {Millions have died in conflicts since the Cold War; most of them in Africa and intrastate conflicts},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2024},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/conflict-deaths-breakdown}
}
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