65 conflicts, 245,000 dead: 2025 was the world's most violent year since World War II

The world saw the highest number of state conflicts since the Second World War in 2025, a Norwegian study said on Tuesday, warning of a surge in attacks targeting civilians.

The annual "Conflict Trends" report from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) said 65 conflicts involving at least one state were recorded worldwide last year, a new high since 1946.

Conflicts between states also hit a new 80-year peak, doubling from the year before to eight -- including border clashes between India and Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Cambodia and Thailand, as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Israeli military operations against Syria.

"Unfortunately there is not a lot of positive things," researcher Siri Aas Rustad told a group of media outlets, including AFP.

"Usually I'm able to sort of squeeze something positive out of it, but this year it's shocking, the numbers."

Last year was the third deadliest since the end of the Cold War, with around 245,000 deaths directly related to fighting or political violence -- nearly 76,500 of them attributed to attacks directly targeting civilians, compared with 14,200 in 2024.

The sharp increase in civilian deaths is due to the conflict between the army and paramilitaries in Sudan, where the siege and massacres carried out in El-Fasher city in the Darfur region are estimated to have left some 60,000 people dead.

Since the end of the Cold War, only 1994 and 2021 have seen more bloodshed, due to the Rwanda genocide and the war in Ethiopia's Tigray region, respectively.

Africa worst affected

"What has happened in the past five or six years is that we have several big conflicts going on at the same time and they seem to take over from each other. The world doesn't get any break," Rustad said.

"And that's different from previously -- this continuous high intensity level of conflict globally."

The PRIO study is based on figures compiled by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), attached to Uppsala University.

It distinguishes between three main types of organised violence: conflicts involving at least one state, non-state conflicts, and one-sided violence against civilians.

Africa remained the region most affected by the first type of conflict with 29, followed by Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, and Europe.

Rustad said Israel was "clearly one of the most aggressive countries in the world at the moment", pointing to its involvement in different types of conflicts in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, against Iran, and against Houthi rebels.

She also pointed to the United States, saying President Donald Trump's return to power had brought "not just attacking and increasing violence, but also the trade barriers they're putting up."

"We are putting a lid on collaboration. The (UN) Security Council doesn't work at the moment. We get a much more polarised world," she said.