While conflicts and events happen all over the world, the way in which they play out varies between countries. Through the next plots, we intend to highlight these differences.
The following plot shows the number of events recorded for each of the world regions. The first thing that is noticed is the higher number of events in Europe and Central Asia, even compared to regions historically troubled, like the Middle East and Africa. Comparatively, North America seems to live a peaceful time.
Numbers alone mean nothing: the following chart helps us discern how different regions of the world are plagued by different types of clashes. North America is characterized exclusively by protests and riots. A similar prominence is present in the asian regions. The countries more beaten by military conflicts seem to be the ones in Europe and the Middle East. Lastly, we can see how violence against civilians dominates the leaderboard in Africa and Latin America.
Another important metric to consider is how much of the population is affected by such events. Even though regions may register lots of events, that does not mean much if few people are involved. In fact, looking at the following plot, we can see how it is dominated by Latin America, where battles seem to affect great part of the population, together with violence on civilians. Other points of interest include the higher quantity of remote violence events in Europe, and of protests and riots in Asia.
After taking a look at our visualizations, it is possible that You, the reader, may wonder when you come into the picture. You may think that such events affects only soldiers and terrorists, people who go out of their way to get into trouble. But this couldn't be farther from the truth.
The following plot compares the clashes between military factions with violent events on the civilian population. We can see how, with the exception of Europe, civilians are often involved in violent events, sometimes even more than the military in the case of Latin America. Even in the smaller data pool of North America we see a greater number of events involving civilians.
Lastly, we take a look at protests, and how often they turn into violent demonstrations. The related plot seems quite comforting in this scenario, with the highest value being around 20%. Still, it means that almost one protest out of five turns into a violent clash.