Series

Conflict Index

The ACLED Conflict Index is a global assessment of how and where conflicts in every country and territory in the world vary according to four indicators — deadliness, danger to civilians, geographic diffusion, and the number of armed groups.

Palestine, Mexico, and Ukraine are the most dangerous places in the world

Palestine also has the most geographically diffuse conflict, meaning ACLED records high levels of violence in nearly 70% of Gaza and the West Bank.
Myanmar is the most fragmented conflict in the world, with over 1,200 distinct armed groups reported to have been involved in at least one violent event.
Pakistan became more dangerous for civilians in the past 12 months and deaths from political violence increased, driven by growing regional insurgencies and a short-lived but intense escalation in fighting with India.
Haiti became more deadly and dangerous to civilians: Over 4,500 Haitians were killed as a result of political violence, while targeted violence against civilians also increased.
Ecuador became more deadly, with over 1,000 more people killed as a result of political violence than in 2024.

What is the Conflict Index?

Using ACLED's event-based conflict dataset, the Conflict Index analyzes the intensity of conflict in every country around the world by assessing:

Deadliness: How fatal is the violence?
Danger: How much violence is specifically targeted toward civilians?
Geographic diffusion: What proportion of the country experiences a high level of violence?
Armed groups fragmentation: How many armed groups are operating within the country?

The Index scores each country and territory on each of these indicators and provides an overall ranking of the top 50 most severe and difficult-to-resolve conflicts in the world.

For more specifics on the methodology, see About the Conflict Index.

Where is conflict happening?

ACLED’s Conflict Index ranks the 50 most severe conflicts in the world — categorizing them as extreme, high, or turbulent.

How much conflict is occurring in the world?

Conflict remained at a steady level over the past 12 months. ACLED records 204,605 conflict events from 1 December 2024 to 28 November 2025, compared to 208,219 events 12 months prior.

These violent events resulted — conservatively — in over 240,000 deaths.

The wars in Ukraine and Palestine continued to drive the level of violence, contributing over 40% of conflict events in the past 12 months. The civil wars in Myanmar and Sudan continued at high levels, and gang violence continued to drive conflict: Brazil, Ecuador, Haiti, and Mexico rank among the top 10 countries with the most severe violence in the world. Fighting in Syria continued despite the fall of Bashar al-Assad, and Nigeria saw no respite from its complex patchwork of regional conflicts. In Pakistan, worsening Islamist and separatist insurgencies in the country’s peripheries — exacerbated by at times explosive relations with its neighbors — resulted in further deterioration of an already fraught security environment.

How has conflict changed?

While the top five countries in the Index retained their positions in the rankings, some of the conflicts within those countries changed significantly. Palestine is the third-most-deadly place in the world, despite a drop in conflict-related deaths due to ceasefires in Gaza. Palestine is outranked in deadliness only by Ukraine and Sudan. Conversely, in Syria, conflict-related deaths, driven by a combination of political competition, sectarian violence, and foreign meddling, increased from just over 6,000 to over 9,000 fatalities in the past 12 months.

Myanmar, Mexico, Brazil, and Nigeria remained consistently high across all four Index indicators. Notably, gang violence in Ecuador and Haiti led to a rise in their rankings. Ecuador rose to no. 6 as it had over 50 armed groups actively engaging in violence in the past 12 months, including nearly 40 gangs. Over half of these gangs were involved in the more than 2,500 events targeting civilians. In Haiti, a near-doubling of fatalities and an increase in events targeting civilians led to a rise in ranking, from no. 11 in 2024 to no. 8 this year.