NEW YORK – The Institute for Economic and Peace on Thursday, said Syria has overtaken Afghanistan as the world’s least peaceful country.
The institute, in its latest edition of the Global Peace Index Report, released in New York, noted that the global violence impacted economies by 9.8 trillion dollars last year.
The report said the violence in Syria pushed the country to surpass Afghanistan as the world’s least peaceful nation.
The index also noted that Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, North Korea and Russia came right behind.
It said Iceland tops the list of the most peaceful country, followed by Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Finland, Canada and Japan.
It said Europe leads the world in peace, while South Asia remains at the bottom of the overall regional rankings.
It said the rising global violence caused the world’s governments to spend over 9.8 trillion dollars of global Gross Domestic Product, on containing and dealing with consequences of violence.
It stated that the economic impact of violence was twice the size of the combined gross domestic product of the 54 African countries, as the world spent 9.5 trillion dollars to deal with violence in 2012.
The report stated that terrorism, conflicts including new outbreaks, and displacement of people caused worldwide peace to deteriorate slightly in 2013.
“This confirms a seven-year, gradual but significant downward slide, which overturns a 60-year trend of increasing global peacefulness dating back to the end of the Second World War,” it said. (dpa/NAN)
