Nigeria Ranked One of Five Countries Worst Hit By Terrorists

Nigeria Ranked One of Five Countries Worst Hit By Terrorists

Nigeria has been ranked among 2013 world’s most terrorised countries in the Global Terrorism Index 2014 report released on Tuesday.

In the said report, five mostly terrorised countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria, accounted for 80 per cent of the deaths from terrorism in 2013.

Iraq alone recorded more than 6,000 deaths, making the country most affected by terrorism, the report said.

India, Somalia, the Philippines, Yemen and Thailand were the next five, with between one per cent and 2.3 per cent of global deaths by terrorism.

Behind most of the deaths were militant groups, Islamic State militants, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban, which the Global Terrorism Index 2014 report said were the four main groups responsible for 66 per cent of all deaths from terrorist attacks in 2013.

The latest study into international terrorism showed that the number of deaths from terrorism increased by 61 per cent between 2012 and 2013.

The report, which investigated terrorism trends between 2000 and 2013, used data from the United States (US)-based Global Terrorism Database.

Nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks occurred in 2013, which amounted to 44 per cent increase from 2012, the report indicated.

The report by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said nearly 18,000 people died from terrorist attacks in 2013.