Deaths from attacks fell 9% in the world

The number of deaths as a result of attacks fell by 9% in 2022. This means that 6,701 people worldwide died in terrorist attacks in the past year. It is also a decrease of 4180 deaths from 2015, the year with the most deaths.

The data is in the report Global Terrorism Index (Global Terrorism Index), which was released this Tuesday and takes stock of terrorist attacks in the world in 2022.

The document still shows that, for the first time since 2019, the number of attacks has decreased, with a total of 3955 attacks registered in 2022 (28% less than in 2021, when there were 5483 registered).

“The reduction in deaths from terrorism can be attributed to Afghanistan, which since the Taliban took over the government has reduced the number of victims of attacks in the country by 866,” concludes the document organized by the Institute for Economics and Peace, based in Sydney, Australia. This means that “If Afghanistan had been excluded from the counts, the number of deaths from terrorism would have decreased by only 4%”. On the contrary, Pakistan has seen “a significant increase” in the number of fatalities in attacks, from 292 (in 2021) to 643 (in 2022). It was also the first year that there were no deaths in Tunisia.

The most problematic region remains the Sahel, in Africa, where countries such as Nigeria are located. But it is in Mali and Burkina Faso that there is an increase in the number of deaths from attacks.

The report also indicates that the deadliest terrorist group remains Islamic State (with 1,045 killed in 410 attacks), followed by Al-Shabaab (784 killed in 315 attacks).. The third deadliest is the Islamic State branch in Khorasan province, active in South and Central Asia.

And Portugal? Throughout the report, the country is at the bottom of the list, with a total of zero attacks and no deaths.. The first European country to appear in the index is Greece, which ranks 31st, with the report assuming that terrorism has an average impact (on a scale of 0 to 10) in the country. This ranking is based on data provided by the platform. TerrorismTrackerwhich may mean there may be differences for other databases.