Deaths from terrorism in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations increased 650 percent last year, despite a marked fall globally as Islamic State and Boko Haram militants suffered military defeats at home, but committed more attacks abroad, a report said yesterday.
The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) said that worldwide there were 29,376 deaths caused by terrorism last year, a drop of 10 percent and the first fall in four years, as action against Islamic State in Iraq and Boko Haram in Nigeria reduced the numbers killed there by a third.
However, the report said the groups had spread their actions to neighboring states and regions, causing a huge increase in fatalities among OECD members, most of which are wealthy countries, such as the US and European nations.
Photo: AFP
It said 21 of the 34 OECD member countries had witnessed at least one attack, with most deaths occurring in Turkey and France, where coordinated attacks by Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers at the Bataclan music venue, a soccer stadium and several cafes in Paris in November last year killed 130 people.
Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and Turkey all suffered their worst death tolls from terrorism in a single year since 2000, according to the index which is produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) think tank.
In total, 23 countries registered their highest-ever number of terrorism deaths.
“While on the one hand the reduction in deaths is positive, the continued intensification of terrorism in some countries and its spread to new ones is a cause for serious concern and underscores the fluid nature of modern terrorist activity,” IEP executive chairman Steve Killelea said.
“The attacks in the heartland of Western democracies underscore the need for fast-paced and tailored responses to the evolution of these organizations,” he said.
The annual index ranks nations based on data from the Global Terrorism Database run by a consortium based at the US University of Maryland.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria, which accounted for 72 percent of all deaths, were the top five ranked countries in the GTI. The US ranked 36th, with France 29th, Russia 30th and the UK 34th.
The global economic impact of terrorism was assessed to be US$89.6 billion, with Iraq suffering the greatest impact, at 17 percent of its GDP.
Islamic State was the deadliest group last year, the report said, overtaking Boko Haram with attacks in 252 cities that led to 6,141 deaths.
However, Boko Haram’s move into neighboring countries Niger, Cameroon and Chad saw the number of fatalities in these countries increase by 157 percent.
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