Global conflicts hit record high in 2024, Uppsala study says

Global conflict climbed to its highest level on record in 2024, but the headline number only partly captures what changed. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program recorded 61 active armed conflicts involving at least one state, up from 59 in 2023 and the most since its data series began in 1946. Eleven of those fights met the group’s threshold for war, meaning at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a year.

The death toll was concentrated in a handful of major wars. UCDP estimated nearly 160,000 deaths in organised violence in 2024, with Ukraine the deadliest conflict by far at about 76,000 battle-related deaths. Israel’s wars in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon accounted for roughly 26,000 deaths, and 94% of those fatalities were civilians or of unknown identity. That mix points to a conflict landscape that is not only deadly, but also increasingly lethal for noncombatants.

The latest numbers also show that violence is becoming more fragmented, not just more intense. A follow-up conflict trends study from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, based on UCDP data, counted 65 active conflicts across 35 countries in 2025, the highest level since 1946. It estimated about 245,000 battle-related deaths, making 2025 the third deadliest year since 1989. The main drivers were Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza and escalating violence in Sudan, including the siege and massacre of El Fasher.

PRIO said interstate conflicts doubled from four in 2024 to eight in 2025, the highest level since records began. That is a reminder that the post-Cold War period has not simply returned to an old pattern of civil wars and insurgencies; state-on-state fighting is reappearing alongside them. The result is more overlapping crises, with front lines, displacement routes and aid corridors colliding across regions.

For humanitarian agencies and Western security planners, the implications are severe. More conflicts across more countries usually mean larger refugee flows, wider spillover risks and higher demands on already stretched aid budgets. PRIO warned that more than a decade of persistently high violence has made conflicts more concentrated, overlapping and harder for peacebuilding, diplomacy and relief operations to manage.