The 10 Most Dangerous Places To Live In 2014
The
new Social Progress Index 2014 has just been released with its plethora
of talking points for policy junkies and pedestrian pundits alike.
We’re feeling a little macabre, so rather than talk about the state of
world health or freedom or clean water, we’ve decided to make our first
order of business: Where in the world are you most likely to come to
harm in 2014?
Before you list off the many countries you can think
of that regularly came up in reports of violent protests, suicide
bombings, drone strikes, missile attacks and other news-worthy events of
the past 12 months, know that some of the most unsafe countries this
year are among the hottest vacationing spots in the world. No, that has
nothing to do with bad seafood or shark attacks (which rarely happen;
leave the sharks alone). This is about the frequency of murder, crime
and fatal traffic incidents, as well as more sweeping trends like human
rights abuses, political terror and genocidal violence.
Many
countries which ranked as ‘most dangerous’ either fall into the “beach
paradise” category or the “child gangs, drug cartels and car bombings”
category (or a little of both). Apparently tourism can exist as close to
violence as political instability, inter-warring and institutionalized
drug trafficking. But before you rethink your summer vacation, use some
common sense here: Flying to your favourite beach resort and checking
into the Marriott doesn’t carry the same kind of risk as strolling
through the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Like anywhere else, there’s
always the paradise you see and the hell you don’t. In the most
unfortunate cases however, it seems there’s very little of the former
picture.
Here are the 10 countries which scored lowest for
personal safety in 2014, based on the SPI’s 100-point personal safety
index (where the safest countries score nearer 100).
10. Sudan: 37.25
Sudan
isn’t exactly one of those beach paradises. A whole fifth of citizens
here live on less than $1.25 US a day, and as one of the so-called
“hungriest” nations in the world enormous swaths of the population live
in abysmal conditions. Ethnic strife and slavery have been a mainstay
for most of Sudan’s history, but the danger here comes equally from
above with a government that retains power through flagrant human
rights-abusing militias partial to widespread killings, rape, systematic
torture, robbery and recruitment of child soldiers. Since 1983, nearly 2
million Sudanese have died to civil war and famine.
9. Mexico: 34.61
Mexico
is in fact one of the most visited countries in the world and makes
more money from tourism than any other Latin American country. But its
abundance of historical and ecological marvels conceals a shoddy track
record for human rights, especially in southern parts of the country
populated by segregated indigenous peoples and poor urbanites. Then
there’s the drug cartels, who are said to employ over 100,000 people in a
never-ending clash against narco authorities. Estimates say the drug
war here has claimed over 60,000 dead and 20,000 missing, with a
homicide rate nearly three times the world average. When 4% of drug
related violence claims innocent victims, safety isn’t exactly
guaranteed in many parts of the country.
8. Honduras: 33.94
Official
reports say Honduras had 81 murders for every 100,000 people last year.
The year before, UNODC pinned this country’s murder rate as the highest
in the world. That mostly comes from the Honduras you don’t see. If
you’re planning to visit, take a group tour to the Copan Mayan ruins and
you’ll be well guarded by a strong police presence. Venture outside the
tourism bubble, and it’s not unheard of for police calls to go
completely ignored against rampant carjacking, kidnapping and violence.
With hugely impoverished populations occupying this politically unstable
transit point in the Latin American drug trade, gang crime abounds with
impunity.
7. Dominican Republic: 32.90
As
one of the world’s go-to places for beaches and ecotourism, rest
assured travel destinations are the Dominican’s biggest export for a
reason. If you’re abiding by a travel brochure, you might just run the
risk of a purse-snatching at worst. But in the hearts of cities like La
Altagracia and Santo Domingo Province, the drug trade paints a different
picture. When you stand on a Dominican beach, you can either stare out
to the sublime turquoise waters and breathe the salty air, or turn
around and imagine the millions of dollars of illegal cocaine and
weapons exchanging hands underground. As for the poor road conditions,
with no right-of-way for pedestrians and lack of traffic controls you
might want to rethink that car rental and hop on a guided tou
6. Chad: 31.97
Chances
are you’re not planning to kick back in a failed state anytime soon.
When Save the Children doesn’t even want to enter the country for fear
of having its aid workers killed, tourism is probably out of the
question. Chad has been called the most corrupt country in the world
thanks to an unstable and abusive political landscape orbited by rampant
tribal warfare. Official security forces in Chad practice arbitrary
arrest, extrajudicial killings, torture and rape with near-impunity, and
virtually no one recognizes the legitimacy of an administration
clinging to power by plundering the nation’s oil reserves.
r.
Sudan
isn’t exactly one of those beach paradises. A whole fifth of citizens
here live on less than $1.25 US a day, and as one of the so-called
“hungriest” nations in the world enormous swaths of the population live
in abysmal conditions. Ethnic strife and slavery have been a mainstay
for most of Sudan’s history, but the danger here comes equally from
above with a government that retains power through flagrant human
rights-abusing militias partial to widespread killings, rape, systematic
torture, robbery and recruitment of child soldiers. Since 1983, nearly 2
million Sudanese have died to civil war and famine.
5. South Africa: 30.90
Luckily
for South Africa the SPI didn’t count sexual aggression among their
safety measures this year (estimates say 500,000 women are raped
annually here by one in every four men — the highest rate of sexual
violence the world). Regardless, with 50 murders happening daily, it’s
no surprise violent crime and thievery are two of the most cited reasons
for emigration out of South Africa’s borders. In 2007, a major South
African insurance company discontinued policies on Volkswagen Citi Golfs
simply because they were stolen too often; so while you might get away
with ignoring the occasional stop sign in your hometown, if you find
yourself at the stop sign in a South African city you should probably
keep driving.
4. Central African Republic: 29.41
It’s
not often a government advises against travelling to its own country.
Bandits, armed rebel groups and poachers have virtually destroyed
tourism in the echo of CAR’s civil war, and civilian safety remains
entirely unenforced in many parts of the country. However, this lack of
security might spare you a torture, beating, rape, or imprisonment under
subhuman conditions by the country’s security forces; you might just
have to deal with a heavily-armed youth gang instead.
Last
November, the UN and France separately put the Central African Republic
on genocide watch. Since then, human rights group Amnesty International
identified several massacres of Muslim civilians by a Christian group;
thousands of Muslims are currently fleeing the country.
3. Venezuela: 27.55
2. Nigeria: 23.57
1. Iraq: 21.52
Iraq
might be an obvious choice as the most dangerous country in the world,
but the full nature of that danger tends to get overlooked. Despite the
Iraq War officially ending with US withdrawal in 2011, insurgency within
its borders remains virtually unchanged. A lack of stable government
has ushered in comprehensive networks of organized crime in the vein of
drug trafficking in the Balkans, Mexico and Nigeria. Here however, the
rise of this criminal landscape becomes all the more potent in a
post-war scenario marked by insurgent groups who build and in turn
harness power from the organized crime operations. According to the US
Bureau of Diplomatic Security, 2013 was the worst year for civilian
deaths since the height of War in 2008.
Nigeria
is a textbook example of what an “oil cursed” country looks like. With
the government concentrating its efforts on protecting its oil exports
(and looting the treasury) the country remains socially and politically
underdeveloped. Official security forces here practice arbitrary
detention, violence, rape and torture, especially in the oil-rich Niger
Delta region where conflict rarely subsides. Underdevelopment has left
Nigeria vulnerable to capture by a vast network of organized crime
around the drug trade: As Nigerian gangs compete to ship heroin from
East to West, and cocaine from West to East, violence breaks out in the
street and claims hundreds of civilian lives every year.
President
Hugo Chavez’s untimely death last year left little optimism that the
country would undergo significant improvements in crime anytime soon.
All the institutional mechanisms for a dangerous landscape are in place
here, including standardized corruption, politically-backed drug
trafficking and a highly overcrowded prison system. The data paints a
picture of Venezuela as one of the most unequivocally violent places on
earth: A homicide every 21 minutes — more than 200,000 over the last 15
years alone. Its rate of violent death in peacetime rivals Iraq in the
midst of violent war. The most telling fact here? The Venezuelan
government no longer publishes its crime statistics.
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