Fewer Conflicts but more War Victims, Says Think-Tank

Fewer conflicts took place around the world last year but they killed far more people than before, a leading military think-tank said as it launched a new report Wednesday.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which is based in London, detailed 42 armed conflicts that took place globally in 2014, 21 fewer than the 63 recorded in 2008.

A total of 180,000 people were killed in conflict last year -- a dramatic increase from 56,000 in 2008.

"The number of armed conflicts around the world has been progressively declining... and this is obviously something to be welcomed," said Nigel Inkster, editor of the Armed Conflict Study.

"But the decline in the number of conflicts has been more than compensated for by an inexorable rise in the intensity of violence associated with them."

A large proportion of the deaths last year came in Syria, where 70,000 people were killed. The toll over the past four years stands at 200,000, the IISS says, while other sources put the figure at more than 220,000.

Some 18,000 people were also killed in Iraq, where the Islamic State group has made sweeping gains in recent months, including in the city of Ramadi late last week.

Conflicts are also turning more people into refugees, while making more people homeless within their own countries than ever before, Inkster added.

In 2013, the number of displaced people topped 50 million around the world for the first time since the end of World War II, according to the U.N. refugee agency.