Violent Crimes Kill More People Than War [Study]

The 2011 Global Burden of Armed Violence report has revealed that more people are killed each year by armed violence than war.

According to the study of the 526,000 people who die violenty every year 55,000 are killed during warfare while 396,000 are murdered outside of armed conflict. A remaining 54,000 people also die due to “unintentional violence” while 21,000 are killed by police operations.

The study also found that Latin American and several other middle African regions are the hardest hit by street violence and unintentional violence.

In a scary statistic the study revealed that El Salvador, Iraq and Jamaica account for more than a quarter of all global violent deaths despite housing less than 5 percent of the world’s population.

One of the hardest hit areas was Mexico’s Chihuahua state which witnessed 129 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010, largely due to armed drug gangs that have been competing to expand their territory.

The study also revealed that while most violent deaths happen to men there are still approximately 66,000 women killed each year. Interesting in the most violent countries there tends to actually be less female deaths when compared to less violent regions.

Does the 2011 Global Burden of Armed Violence report surprise you? With the number of people engaged in war compared to non-war participants the numbers in many ways make sense but still show a scary number of violent deaths internationally.