The world experienced 36 conflict contexts in 2023, the highest number in ten years

The UAB School for a Culture of Peace (Escola de Cultura de Pau, ECP) publishes its Alert 2024! Report on conflicts, human rights and peacebuilding, a study analyzing the state of conflicts and peacebuilding around the world in 2023. Among its conclusions are the existence of 36 conflicts, the highest number since 2014.

In addition, 42% of the armed conflicts showed a deterioration of the situation. As in previous editions, the 17 conflicts classified as high intensity were concentrated in Africa and Asia, although those with the greatest media coverage were located in Europe (Ukraine) and the Middle East (Palestine-Israel).

There were five scenarios in which the situation was considered to have become an armed conflict according to the ECP: the crises in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia, in the SSC Khatumo State (Somalia), in the western Democratic Republic of Congo and in Sudan, as well as the conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah. In contrast, the crisis in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia has been removed from conflict status.

The report also notes that the number of tension scenarios increased: there were 114, i.e. six more than in 2022, which confirms the increase in the number of socio-political crises recorded in recent years.

Almost half of these tensions worsened over the course of 2023 and 23% were of an international nature, such as the perhaps better known cases of tensions between Venezuela and Guyana, between China and Taiwan, or between North Korea and South Korea and its ally the United States, but also other cases such as the territorial disputes between India and China, or between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Among other repercussions of these conflicts, the yearbook gathers UNHCR data to establish that 110 million people had suffered forced displacement in 2023. Of these, 36.4 million were refugees (more than half from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine). The ECP also detected that both conflicts and tensions occur mostly in countries where there are poor levels of gender equality, and the UN has identified 49 armed actors suspected of having committed rape or other forms of sexual violence.