Project 01 · Who is dying, and where · 2022–2025

Four countries.
Half the world's dead.

Of 233 countries with recorded conflict events, four account for 50.1% of all deaths — Ukraine, Myanmar, Palestine, Sudan. Among them, tens of thousands of civilians, not combatants. But absolute numbers hide a second story: a territory of 5 million people records the highest death rate on Earth.

623K
Total deaths
2022–2025
994
Deaths per 100k
Palestine
72%
Accounted for by
top 10 countries
Each dot · one thousand people

623,000 lives ended
in three years of war.

1 dot = 1,000 conflict deaths
624 dots = total deaths, 2022–2025
Source · ACLED
154Ukraine
66Myanmar
54Palestine
37Sudan
312229 other countries
Countries are placed in order of fatalities · top 4 highlighted · remainder in lighter ink.
Behind every dot, a thousand names that will not be written here.

The grid above shows the geography of a generation's wars at a glance — 624 dots, 623,000 lives. The chart below opens that geography country by country, then changes the question: not how many died, but at what rate.

Conflict deaths by country · 2022–2025 · all 233 countries
Violence against civilians
Deaths per 100,000 population
Source · ACLED · 233 countries · 2022–2025 · population: UN WPP 2023
01 / 04
01 — The concentration

Half the deaths.
Four countries.

The top bar shows the four deadliest countries — together 50.1% of all conflict deaths globally. Below, the remaining 229 countries share the other half. The geography of war is radically concentrated.

50.1%
Ukraine · Myanmar
Palestine · Sudan
49.9%
229 other
countries
02 — The ranking

Ukraine leads.
By a vast margin.

154,560 deaths — more than double the second country. Myanmar, Palestine, Sudan follow. Then a long tail: Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico carry significant numbers in conflicts that do not look like wars at all.

154K
Ukraine
2022–2025
66K
Myanmar
2022–2025
03 — The hidden scale

Normalise.
Palestine leads.

The same bars — now scaled to deaths per 100,000 people. The ranking changes entirely. Palestine: 994 per 100k. Nearly one in every hundred people killed in three years. Ukraine drops to second at 410. Size hides intensity.

994
Palestine
per 100,000
410
Ukraine
per 100,000
04 — Who dies as a civilian

Not soldiers.
Civilians.

The red overlay shows deaths classified as direct violence against civilians. In Mexico, 81% of all conflict deaths are civilian. Brazil 54%, DR Congo 55%. These numbers do not describe wars — they describe organised violence against unarmed people.

81%
Mexico
civilian deaths
55%
DR Congo
civilian deaths
01
14

Countries with more than 10,000 deaths in 2022–2025. They are 6% of nations yet account for 88% of all recorded conflict fatalities.

02
74

Countries with zero recorded conflict deaths in the dataset. One in three countries. Violence is not global — it concentrates in specific geographies.

03
55%

Of deaths in DR Congo were direct violence against civilians — the highest rate among major conflicts. A war paid for most by those not fighting.

04
6K+

Documented cases of sexual violence in conflict zones, 2022–2025. Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine and DR Congo account for the majority.

Coming next
Who is paying for war
Section 03 →