World most dangerous countries in 2022

Afghanistan ranked #1

Afghanistan has retained the title of “world's most dangerous country” for the fifth year in a row according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Peace Index, but you may be surprised by which country is missing from the list.

02 Yemen

Yemen was a close runner-up to Afghanistan because of its ongoing civil and international conflict with its citizens and neighboring states.

War and violence in Yemen

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government has been embroiled in an eight-year conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels which has devastated the country and turned it into one of the world's greatest humanitarian tragedies.

Problems in Yemen

Widespread hunger, disease, and attack on civilians are a mainstay of Yemeni life and displacing “more than four million people and [giving] rise to cholera outbreaks, medicine shortages, and threats of famine,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a prominent American think tank.

03 Syria

You may not be surprised to learn that Syria took the third spot on the Global Peace Index’s list, locked in its own armed conflict since 2011, Syria is about as unsafe as countries come.

No part of Syria is safe...

“No part of Syria is safe from violence,” warned the U.S. Department of State, “kidnappings by armed groups, unjust arrests or detentions, the use of chemical warfare, shelling, and aerial bombardment of civilian centers pose a significant risk of death or serious injury.”

Everything is destroyed

“The destruction of infrastructure, housing, medical facilities, schools, and power and water utilities has also increased hardships inside the country,” the State Department warning added.

04 Russia

Russia is next on the list in fourth place. Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia has dropped several places on the index to 160 out of 163 countries. But that really isn’t a surprise.

A rise in death

The authors of the Global Peace Index noted that the “conflict between Russia and Ukraine led to a large rise in the number of conflict deaths, as well as sharp deteriorations in indicators such as refugees and IDPs, political instability and political terror.”

Russia's war causing violence elsewhere

“The conflict in Ukraine had immediate repercussions outside the Russia and Eurasia region, especially for the neighboring countries relations indicator, which recorded a sharp deterioration,” the authors of the Global Peace Index added.

05 South Sudan

South Sudan was ranked fifth on the index and named the least peaceful country on the continent of Africa for its continued high levels of deaths related to the country’s internal conflicts.

South Sudan is improving

Interestingly, the Global Peace Index report noted that South Sudan’s homicide rate was at its “lowest level since the country’s establishment in 2011,” a sign that the country may be moving in the right direction.

06 The Democratic Republic of Congo

Another African country followed South Sudan to earn the sixth spot in the rankings. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had a major deterioration in its “deaths from external conflicts.”

Troubles date back to 1994

Instability in the DRC dates back to 1994 when spillover from the genocide in Rwanda led to armed Hutu groups forming in the eastern DRC, sparking conflicts that the country’s government is still struggling to deal with today.

07 Iraq

In the seventh spot is Iraq, a country that has never fully recovered from the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Local minorities seem like they’re locked in a perpetual state of religious and cultural conflict which has seriously affected governance all throughout the country.

Iraq is improving

Fortunately, Iraq does seem to be improving. The country moved up the listings this year and Vision of Humanity noted that “Iraq recorded the second largest increase in peacefulness in the 2021 Global Peace Index, with its score improving by 4.3%.”

A fall in deaths

Iraq’s improvement in peacefulness has been a growing trend in the country over the past four years and is mainly due to reduced militarization and a large fall in deaths due to internal conflict.

Vision of Humanity comments

“The number of conflict-related deaths in Iraq has fallen from a peak of over 15,000 in 2014 to less than a thousand in 2019, with deaths from terrorism following a similar trajectory,” wrote Vision of Humanity in their assessment of the country’s situation.

08 Somalia

Somalia was ranked eighth in the Global Peace Index report mentioning that more than 20% of the country’s population had been displaced in 2022.

09 The Central African Republic

The Central African Republic joined Somalia near the bottom of the list at ninth place and shared a 20% population displacement level with its fellow African nation.

10 Sudan

Finally, Sudan took the tenth spot, surprising many who thought that Ukraine would make it onto the list of the world's ten most dangerous countries.

Ukraine was ranked 11th

Ukraine did make it into the eleventh spot. Suffering greatly from Russia’s invasion, Ukraine dropped 17 places in the rankings to 153rd out of 163 countries.

Hope for the world

It has been a complicated year for global peace. “Despite the overall deterioration of global peace relative to 2021,” wrote Kelly Clarke of National News, “90 countries recorded an improvement in peacefulness this year, while 71 recorded a deterioration.” So there may still be hope on the horizon for the world's most dangerous countries.