This post has been written mainly for students studying A-level sociology (AQA focus). Wikipedia also looks at conflict deaths by country from 2016 to 2020 – Mexico tops the list in 2020, and this along with Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Nigeria have had particularly high levels of conflict deaths over the past 5 years. It would be worth spending some time exploring some of these conflicts to get a feel for their differences and similarities.īut even if you don’t do any ‘deeper digging’ just a quick skim through Wiki’s list of ongoing conflicts can be informative – it shows you that MOST contemporary high death toll conflicts occur in developing countries, mostly in the middle east and Sub-Saharan Africa, and it also shows you just you that some countries have suffered ongoing or successive conflicts for several years – we see this in the Congo, and in Iraq and Syria. Examples of recent and ongoing conflicts (list taken from Wiki) ConflictĪnti-Terrorist Forces vs.

They also list ‘ minor skirmishes’ which have resulted in 1 to 99 deaths.Ī point of note is that the Mexican Drug War actually had the highest death toll in 2020 – with over 50 000 deaths, but it’s not classified as a ‘major war’ because most of those deaths are murders rather than as a result of direct armed conflict between the drugs gangs and the Mexican armed forces.

Minor Conflicts, with 100 to 999 deaths in the current or past year – around a further two dozen fall into this category.

Minor wars, with 1000 to 9999 deaths in the current or past year – there are around 12 of these.

Major wars, with over 10 000 direct conflict deaths in the current or previous year – there are three of these: in Afghanistan, Yemen and the Tigray conflict in Sudan/ Ethiopia.

Wikipedia categorises ongoing conflicts as follows:

Map of Conflicts in the world today See (1) below for source Categorising Wars and Conflicts… NB Wikipedia is a useful starting point for this topic as it provides us with a statistical and historical overview which is relatively easy to understand, but keep in mind that you’ll need to verify sources and check up on how valid the data is!. Wikipedia lists around 40 ongoing wars and conflicts with over 100 combat deaths in 2020 or 2021. It is sad to say, but there are currently ongoing wars or minor conflicts in around three dozen countries, most of them in the Middle East, North West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and a major ongoing drug-war in Mexico.

World in conflict skirmish