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Peace is breaking out around the world: reports

Last Updated: Sunday, August 29, 2004 | 10:36 PM ET
CBC News
International peace researchers report that worldwide conflict is on the decline as are the number of casualties.

Their research shows that the number of people killed in battle has fallen to 20,000 per year–the lowest number in the post-Second
World War period.

Although death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan have thrust war into the global spotlight, annual reports from think-tanks such as the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the Canadian NGO Project Ploughshares, cite a drop from the peak numbers
of armed conflicts witnessed in the 1990s.

According to the Stockholm Institute, which measures the number of conflicts that produce greater than 1,000 deaths in a year, 19
major wars were in progress in 2003 compared to 33 in 1991.

The 2004 Stockholm report, obtained in advance of its September publication by The Associated Press, points out that three wars
ended in 2003 (Angola, Rwanda and Somalia) and a fourth in India's Assam state was downgraded from the 'major' category in the
same period of time.

There were three new wars added in 2003–Iraq, the Darfur region of Sudan and Liberia.

The list also includes the U.S. war on al-Qaeda and the conflict between India and Pakistan.

Project Ploughshares, which measures the number of wars that accumulate 1,000 deaths from the beginning of a conflict, reports a
drop to 33 conflicts in 2003 from 44 in 1995.

The Canadian figures do not include deaths from war-induced starvation and disease, deaths from ethnic conflicts not formally
involving states or unopposed massacres such as the Rwandan genocide.