The world saw the highest number of state conflicts since World War II in 2025, a Norwegian study said on Tuesday, warning of a rise in attacks targeting civilians.
The annual “Conflict Trends” report by 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 high, doubling from the previous year 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 are not many positive things,” said researcher Siri Aas Rustad to a group of media, including AFP.
“Usually I’m able to kind 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 to 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 the town of El-Fasher in the Darfur region are estimated to have left around 60,000 people dead.
Since the end of the Cold War, only 1994 and 2021 have seen more bloodshed due to the genocide in Rwanda and the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region respectively.
“What has happened in the last five or six years is that we have several major conflicts going on at the same time, and they seem to be taking over from each other. The world is not getting a break,” Rustad said.
“And it’s different than in the past — this sustained high-intensity level of conflict globally.”
The PRIO survey is based on figures compiled by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), affiliated with Uppsala University.
It distinguishes three main types of organized violence: conflicts involving at least one state, non-state conflicts and unilateral 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 various 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 only attacks and increased violence, but also the trade barriers they put up.”
“We are putting a lid on cooperation. The (UN) Security Council is not working at the moment. We will have a much more polarized world,” she said.
