Mapped: The World’s Lesser-Known Armed Conflicts

Pallavi Rao
2025-02-20 15:34:00
www.visualcapitalist.com

Mapped: The World’s Lesser-Known Armed Conflicts

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Three years have passed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a year and a half since the October 7th attacks. Due to their scale, violence, and geopolitical significance, both have drawn major media attention and political response.

However, they are not the only major ongoing armed conflicts.

This map highlights other regions where civil wars, military engagements, and unpopular governments are perpetrating violence against civilians.

Data is sourced from The Guardian and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) registry, as of January 2025.

Civil Wars Are Still Abound in 2025

Several countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East are locked in civil wars.

Countries Involved	Conflict
Burkina Faso / Mali/ Niger / Benin / Togo	Jihadist insurgency
DRC / Rwanda	Cross-border arming of rebels
Myanmar	Armed resistance to the government
Haiti	Law and order breakdown
Sudan	Civil war
Afghanistan	Autocratic rule
Yemen	Civil war

In coastal West Africa, an entrenched Jihadist insurgency has gathered steam across borders. Per the ACLED, there are two related groups in this: the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State Sahel Province (IS Sahel).

The insurgency is using high impact weapons with increasing lethality: drone strikes, IEDs, and mortar shellings. Retaliatory action from state governments is catching civilians in the crossfire.

Meanwhile, in central Africa, Rwanda’s president is accused of arming rebels in the DRC, a mineral-rich nation. These rebels, known as M23, captured a city along the DRC’s eastern border last month.

For context, this same region has seen violence since 1994, when Hutu extremists murdered close to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. M23 is the newest Tutsi-led rebel group who say they exist to protect the ethnic Tutsis in the DRC.

North of these two countries, Sudan’s military government and RSF rebels are battling for control of the country, with spillover violence.

Conflicts in Asia and the Middle East

In power since 2021, Myanmar’s military junta is using scorched earth tactics against growing armed resistance. The government is holding as many as 21,000 political prisoners and continues to target the Rohingya, forcing them to flee to neighboring countries.

Meanwhile, Taliban rule continues in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrew its forces in 2021. The deeply conservative theocratic government has stripped millions of Afghan women of personal freedoms and basic human rights.

Finally in Yemen, the Saudi-backed Yemini government and Iran-backed Houthis have been at war since 2015.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

There are other brewing conflicts that could turn quickly. Check out this map explainer of the Venezuela–Guyana conflict which breaks down nearly two centuries of tensions in two minutes.

The post Mapped: The World’s Lesser-Known Armed Conflicts appeared first on Visual Capitalist.

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