Countries with the highest share of deaths by terrorism 2022

The highest share of deaths from terrorism in 2022 occurred in Burkina Faso, accounting for 17 percent of all deaths. Second came Mali with 14 percent, underlining the increase of terrorism in West Africa in recent years.

Terrorism worldwide

Although terrorism is a worldwide problem, its victims are highly concentrated in certain areas of the world. The area that saw the highest number of terrorist attacks in 2022 was the Middle East and North Africa.

In 2014, the rise of Boko Haram alongside Islamic State heavily contributed to the number of terrorist attacks worldwide increasing considerably. However, the number decreased until 2018 before increasing again due to increased terrorist activity in West Africa.

Terrorist activity in unstable countries

Terror attacks such as the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001 gain the most attention in global media and generally result in increased counter terrorism efforts at home and abroad. However, the vast majority of attacks occur in the countries where the major terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State are based. The lack of security and order present in places like Iraq and Afghanistan offer more opportunities to terrorist groups to commit more obvious acts of terrorism including bombing, the second most common form of terrorist attack.