Ethiopia’s war “the most deadly” as world sees record high battle-related deaths in 2022 since 1984- report

 

Captive Ethiopian soldiers arrive at Mekele Rehabilitation Center in Mekele, Ethiopia, in July 2021. YASUYOSHI CHIBA, AFP

According to a recent report by the nonprofit Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), the war in Ethiopia, which was the third deadliest in 2021 with over 100,000 fatalities, overtook it as the world's deadliest conflict in 2022 with over 100,000 fatalities, as the year saw the highest number of battle-related deaths from state-based conflicts since 1984.

 

According to the research, which was released on Thursday, more than 204,000 deaths from fighting were reported in ongoing state-based conflicts globally in 2022, with the wars in Ethiopia and Ukraine being responsible for 89% of the fatalities.

 

"Although the conflict in Ukraine received the majority of media attention, a parallel conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) proved more deadly.

 

According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), the war in Ukraine resulted in approximately 81,500 battle-related deaths, whereas the war between the Government of Ethiopia and the TPLF, which was fought concurrently, claimed an estimated 100,200 battle-related lives, according to the research.

 

The report stressed that it has been challenging to document war crimes and deaths from combat in Ethiopia and that "casualty figures should be understood as a conservative baseline."

 

Both the Ethiopian government and the TPLF have not officially disclosed the total number of casualties in the two-year conflict, but Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria and the war's principal mediator, suggested in January of this year that the death toll could have reached 600,000.

 

Additionally, according to PRIO, one of the seven conflicts in the globe that will have gotten worse in 2022 from the top ten list is the conflict involving the government of Ethiopia and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). 55 conflicts were noted in 2022, eight of which exceeded the threshold of 1,000 battle-related deaths and were deemed to be wars, including the conflicts in Ethiopia and Ukraine.

 

Whereas Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria had previously been the conflicts with the largest number of battle-related deaths worldwide, the year 2022 saw a major shift in the conflict landscape, both in terms of location and severity.

 

The Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban engaged in the conflict that resulted in the greatest number of battle-related fatalities in 2021 for the third year in a row. According to the report, fighting between Yemen's government and Hadi's forces was the second-deadliest that year.