By Nourhan El-Sebahy
Among 124 countries, Egypt ranked 13th out of the countries that were highly impacted by terrorism, with a score of 6.813 out of 10, according to the Global Terrorism Index’s recent report for 2015.
Deaths by terrorism in 2014 reached their highest number, with more than 32,000 people killed. The report’s third edition provides a detailed analysis of the changing patterns of terrorism across 162 countries, over the past 15 years. It examines the patterns of terrorism by methods of attack, geographic activity, types of organisations involved, and the national economic and political contexts.
The report was issued by the Institute for Economics and Peace think tank, and stated that the total number of deaths from terrorism in 2014 reached 32,685, which is considered an 80% increase from the 18,111 deaths recorded in 2013.
The majority of deaths in 2014 occurred in three countries: Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria. In these countries, the militant groups “Islamic State” (IS), Boko Haram, and the Fulani militants were most active. The report noted that although terrorism is highly concentrated in a small number of countries, the number of countries that experienced terrorist attacks are also skyrocketing.
This is the first time Egypt was listed in the top 10 countries most affected by terrorism between the years of 2000 and 2014 along with the US. Iraq featured among the top 10 countries between 2000 and 2014 for 12 years, and Syria for three. Angola was in the top 10 for two years, India 14 times, and both Afghanistan and Pakistan 13 times.
Syria, a country ravaged by civil war, continues to see escalating terrorist activities. In the two years before the start of the civil war in 2011, Syria had two years without any terrorist incidents. The year the civil war began, there were 136 deaths by terrorism. The number of deaths increased by around 500 each year since the start of the war, amounting to 1,698 deaths in 2014.
Iraq continues to be most impacted by terrorism, with 9,929 terrorist fatalities last year, the highest ever recorded in a single country. Nigeria had the biggest year-on-year increase ever recorded, with 7,512 deaths in 2014, a 300% increase since 2013.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and sub-Saharan Africa have the highest number of deaths by terrorism in 2014; both regions have many more deaths per attack than other regions.
The report was issued at a time where terrorism has become widespread worldwide, after numerous attacks that left a large number of civilian casualties and attracted international media attention. The most prominent recent incidents were the coordinated deadly attacks in Paris, which resulted in the deaths of 129 people, the Beirut twin bombings killing 41 people, as well as the sabotage of a Russian plane over Sinai in Egypt, which resulted in the deaths of 224 people, mostly Russians.
