Not only Ukraine: these are the other ongoing and escalating wars worldwide

The war in Ukraine has been on every news outlet's radar for over a year, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 's involvement raised the conflict's profile to the international level.

All European media is calling it the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II, but it is not the only war in the world. As the war in Ukraine develops, other conflicts are escalating worldwide.

One of the recent escalations happened in Sudan. According to The Guardian, battles between paramilitaries and the army left at least 56 people dead and nearly 600 wounded. The military is loyal to Gen Abdulfatah al-Burhan, the country's de facto ruler, while the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militia, follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The conflict in Sudan, The Guardian explains, has its roots in the ousting of long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir, who created a set of security forces and "delivery" set them against one another. That includes a group designed to oppress ethnic minorities 20 years ago.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also escalated this year. According to a CNN in-depth piece about the situation, the number of rockets fired from Lebanon in April was the highest since 2006. The conflict grew after Israeli forces violently raided the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem twice in less than 24 hours.

CNN explains that escalation happens in the middle of record levels of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and as the country copes with internal protests. But it is not the first escalation in recent times: the last war between Hamas and Israel in 2021 was triggered by a similar raid.

The results of the conflict in Burkina Faso made headlines in late April when 28 bodies were found shot dead in the northern region of the West African country. According to Aljazeera, the Government claimed the bodies could belong to the victims of an "incident" in the area on December 30 and 31, 2022.

According to Aljazeera, since 2015, Burkina Faso has become the epicenter of a violent jihadist insurgency that has spread from neighboring Mali. The conflict started in 2012 when two militias, including an Islamic group, held control of the north of Mali but then started fighting each other.

The conflict in Mali is considered part of a more significant problem in Northern Africa: the Islamist insurgency in the Maghreb that followed after the end of the Algerian civil war when a local militia joined Al-Qaeda to form a faction in the Islamic Maghreb.

Those conflicts had new developments in March and April 2023. Still, many more have been active for several years, causing death and destruction worldwide.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) compiles information about ongoing wars, conflicts derived from them, and the death toll they leave worldwide.

The death count is divided by the number of victims from the last year and cumulative victims in all the conflict history. That way, through information from ACLED, it is easy to know which conflict is active.

Some of the more significant conflicts the ACLED cites are civil wars, like the internal conflict in Myanmar, which has lasted more than sixty years. According to Time, it is the world's longest civil war. Other civil disputes, like the Ethiopian (2018) and Somalian (1991) wars, have also been active for several years.

War is not only ethnic or political. It also has other reasons. An example is the Mexican drug war. According to ACLED, it started in 2006 and is still active in the country's northern territories.

Other conflicts can seem over, and they quickly reactivate. That is the case for the Afghanistan war. After the US left, the Taliban took control of the country almost immediately. According to research by NBC, the arms the US left behind have even resurfaced in other conflicts, like the dispute in the South Asian region of Kashmir.

According to the Global Peace Index for 2022, that year's results found that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.3%. It is the eleventh-highest deterioration in fourteen years.