Results

​Regional Profiles: Asia-Pacific
Five countries in Asia-Pacific improved in 2024, while six deteriorated, resulting in the impact of terrorism rising in the region after five years of consistent improvement. A further eight countries showed no change in score when compared to the previous year. Despite the deterioration within the last year, the average impact of terrorism in the region is three per cent lower than a decade ago. 
 
Myanmar remained the most impacted country in Asia-Pacific for the fourth consecutive year, despite recording only 67 attacks and 24 deaths in 2024. This is a decline of 85 per cent in attacks and 93 per cent in deaths compared to 2023. 
 
The Philippines, Myanmar, Japan, New Zealand and Indonesia all recorded improvements on the GTI in the past year. However, the Philippines still has the second highest level of terrorism in the region, recording 31 deaths from 22 attacks in 2024. 
 
In 2024, Malaysia recorded the largest deterioration in the region, with its first terror attack in four years. The attack occurred when an assailant killed two people at a police station in May 2024. The assailant reportedly had connections with Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiya (JI). Indonesia was the only other country in Asia-Pacific to record more deaths in 2024 than a decade ago, with ten deaths and 20 attacks in 2024, compared to three deaths and four attacks in 2014. 
 
Several countries have recorded improvements over the last decade, with the Philippines, Thailand, China and Malaysia all improving since 2014. China recorded the largest improvement over the last decade, with deaths falling from 126 in 2015 to only one in 2024. 
 
Global Terrorism Index 2025. Institute for Economics & Peace. Sydney, Australia.

​Regional Overviews

​East Asia & Pacific: Spotlight – Japan
The most powerful earthquake to hit mainland Japan since the Great East Japan disaster of 2011 struck Ishikawa prefecture on the Noto peninsula on the first day of 2024. Nearly 64,000 internal displacements were recorded country- wide, a conservative estimate based only on the movement of people to evacuation shelters. Most IDPs returned home in the following weeks and months. The disaster offered insights into the complexity of managing displacement and providing a targeted response to the most vulnerable, valuable lessons for continuing to improve disaster resilience in one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
 
Conscious of the high risk of earthquakes and other disasters, the government has introduced numerous measures over decades, including earthquake-resistant building codes, emergency drills, early warning systems and evacuation proto- cols. Alerts are disseminated via SMS, mobile phone apps, radio and television, making the population more aware of disaster risks and providing them with the information necessary to move out of harm’s way. These measures have successfully reduced the impacts of disasters and hastened recovery for those displaced. 
 
The Ishikawa earthquake tested these systems and practices again. Three months before the disaster, an annual earthquake and tsunami drill was carried out on the Noto peninsula, ensuring residents’ awareness of evacuation procedures. When the quake struck, many people sought shelter in designated centres. This reduced their exposure to cascading hazards including tsunami waves, landslides, urban fires and aftershocks, all of which took place in the following days and months.
 
Despite the high level of preparedness, there were still challenges. Evacuation calls are not mandatory in Japan and some people did not move to shelters. Some buildings collapsed, which is partly explained by the fact only 75 per cent of structures in Ishikawa were earthquake-resistant, compared with the national average of 90 per cent. Emergency response efforts were also hindered by heavy snow, which hampered access, while the quake forced the temporary closure of the peninsula’s airport and rail services. Delays in the response contributed to the high death toll attributed to the disaster.
 
The government invoked the Disaster Relief Act to respond to the emergency and opened more than 1,500 evacuation centres in Ishikawa. The number of people registering in them reached its peak on 2 January at almost 41,000. Almost a quarter of those displaced were able to return home within a week, but more than 7,400 people were still in shelters three months later. That number had fallen to 14 by the end of the year.
 
Japan is a rare example globally in that it registers and follows up on IDPs, allowing to paint a full picture of the duration of disaster displacement. This was further facilitated by the distribution of cards to monitor the inflow of people into evacuation centres. The initiative helped to streamline the registration process, reduce administrative delays and inform the distribution of food and non-food items. It also helped to record indirect deaths from the psychological and physical toll of life in the evacuation centres, allowing victims’ families to receive state compensation.
 
Nearly half of the residents in the worst affected cities were over 65, leading to specific challenges in the management of the response. Japan’s early warning system has a specific alert level for elderly people and those with disabilities who have limited capacity to evacuate. These alerts were issued, but elderly and other vulnerable IDPs then faced difficult living conditions in shelters because the disaster took place in the depths of winter. Given their specific health requirements, local authorities moved them into temporary accommodation sooner than the general population. National intention surveys also revealed that elderly people were generally more reluctant to relocate in the long term, highlighting the need for tailored approaches to durable solutions.
 
Six months after the earthquake, the government increased its support for reconstruction on the Noto peninsula and created a dedicated taskforce to ensure coordination across ministries and government agencies. Severely damaged homes were demolished, and temporary ones were built with the view to their becoming permanent public housing, ensuring the sustainability of the investments. A long-term plan was also published detailing the steps to be taken towards infrastructure repair and economic recovery over the next two, five and nine years.
 
Other hazards, including floods and storms, continued to displace people across Japan in 2024, including in Ishikawa prefecture. They highlighted the potential for disaster impacts to overlap, the vulnerability of people already displaced, and the need to further improve risk awareness and disaster management.
 
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Norwegian Refugee Council. Geneva, Switzerland. 

Results

Regional Trends
The impact of regional terrorism fell in five of the nine GTI regions in 2024. The largest improvement occurred in South Asia, with Afghanistan recording its third consecutive year of declines in deaths and attacks. North America and South America followed, recording falls in the number of incidents of 27 per cent and 26 per cent respectively. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded its first improvement in GTI score since 2020, driven by decreases in deaths in Mali and Burkina Faso of 21 per cent each in the last year. 
 
South Asia continues to be the most impacted region globally by terrorism, a position it has held since 2007. Similarly, Central America and the Caribbean remained the least impacted region for terrorism in 2024 for the 13th consecutive year. A total of 33 terrorism deaths have been recorded in the Central America and the Caribbean since 2007, with 24 per cent of those occurring in 2009. The region recorded no attacks in 2024 for the first time in three years. 
 
Sub-Saharan Africa experienced the most significant regional deterioration over the past decade, with attacks and deaths rising by 157 and 73 per cent, respectively, since 2014. 
 
By contrast, the trends in MENA and Europe improved over the past decade, with attacks in MENA declining by 77 per cent, and fatalities decreasing by 66 per cent. 
 
In Europe, attacks increased in 2024 for the second time since 2016, driven by increases in terrorist activity in Poland, France and Greece in the last year. However, deaths have remained almost static, recording the lowest terrorism death toll in the region in three years. 
 
Between 2007 and 2024, the largest number of deaths from terrorism was recorded in the MENA region, at 54,904 deaths. Just over 45,000deaths were recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, with a further 41,000 in South Asia. 
 
Although MENA has recorded the highest number of terrorism deaths globally since 2007, the region has seen a significant decline, with decreases in six of the past ten years. MENA is no longer the region with highest number of deaths from terrorism and saw a sustained drop between 2016 and 2022. As a result, sub-Saharan Africa became the region with the most deaths from terrorism, overtaking MENA and South Asia. Collectively they accounted for 95 per cent of deaths from terrorism in 2024. 
 
Global Terrorism Index 2025. Institute for Economics & Peace. Sydney, Australia.

Regional Overviews

East Asia & Pacific

Geophysical hazards 
The region’s location on the Pacific Ring of Fire makes it the world’s most vulnerable to geophysical hazards, which triggered 207,000 displacements in 2024. The largest event took place in Japan on the first day of the year, when the most powerful earthquake to strike the mainland since the Great East Japan disaster of 2011 triggered 64,000 movements across nine prefectures. The disaster offered insights into the complexity of managing displacement and valuable lessons for the future.
 
Indonesia recorded 43,000 displacements linked to eight earthquakes. The most significant was a 6.5 magnitude event that destroyed homes and triggered 34,000 in East Java on 22 March. The country also accounted for 31,000 of the 71,000 triggered by volcanic activity globally. The eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki in East Flores in early November destroyed homes, schools and roads, triggering 13,000 movements. Some of those who fled were told not to return for risk of further activity. The country’s national disaster management agency was planning to relocate 16,000 people and compensate those worst-affected for their losses.
 
The largest displacement event linked to volcanic activity, however, took place in the Philippines. The Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, which had been monitoring the activity of the Kanlaon volcano in Negros Island region, recommended in early December that all people living within a six-kilometre radius of the crater be evacuated. This led to around 31,000 movements and the establishment of nearly 30 evacuation centres.
 
Conflict and violence leave record numbers displaced 
The number of people living in displacement as a result of conflict and violence in East Asia and the Pacific reached its highest on record in 2024 at 3.8 million. Around 93 per cent were in Myanmar, where fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and an array of non-state armed groups (NSAGs) entered its fourth year. 
 
The conflict triggered around 1.2 million movements during the year, slightly fewer than in 2023. In Rakhine, fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, the main NSAG in the state, intensified, triggering 256,000. An additional 198,000 were recorded in Sagaing state and 156,000 in Kachin, which were some of the most affected states. 
 
Clashes between NSAGs and the MAF also erupted in August and September in the central region of Mandalay, triggering nearly 86,000 movements. It was the first time displacement was reported there since the start of the conflict in 2021. The fighting coincided with typhoon Yagi, heightening already significant humanitarian needs. Many IDPs lacked adequate shelter, health and sanitation facilities and education. The compounding impacts of conflict and disasters disrupted agricultural production and increased food insecurity. Some communities still recovering from cyclone Mocha in 2023 were badly affected.
 
Most of the country’s 3.5 million IDPs were living in makeshift shelters outside camps, and ongoing violence, road- blocks and the presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance impeded access to aid for many. About 46 per cent had been displaced between two and five times since the conflict broke out in February 2021, and 24 per cent more than five times.
 
The number of displacements triggered by conflict and violence in the Philippines was at its highest since 2017, when large-scale armed conflict erupted in the city of Marawi in the Mindanao region. Many of the 193,000 movements last year were associated with fighting between different factions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, one of the main NSAGs in Mindanao. Others were triggered by criminal and communal violence. In some cases, conflict and disasters overlapped as insecurity hampered some communities from fleeing floods.
 
There were at least 123,000 people living in displacement as a result of conflict and violence in the country at the end of the year, the vast majority in Mindanao. The figure fell between 2018 and 2021, but has risen again slightly since, pointing to the need to reinforce conflict resolution and peacebuilding mechanisms put in place after the conflict in Marawi.
 
Violence triggered more than 14,000 displacements in Indonesia’s Papua provinces, an increase on 2023, but limited data prevented a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon and its impacts. Conservative estimates pointed to around 57,000 people living in displacement as a result of conflict and violence at the end of the year, almost two-thirds of them since 2018. 
 
Communal violence in Papua New Guinea led to 12,000 displacements, significantly more than the 2,000 recorded in 2023 but far fewer than the 60,000 in 2022. Around 5,500 movements took place in Enga province, which was already hosting 20,000 people displaced by previous clashes. Communal violence erupted a number of times in recent years, reducing communities’ resilience, particularly in terms of food security. Women have also been exposed to gender-based violence.Around 84,000 people were living in displacement across the country as result of conflict and violence at the end of the year, and most of them had been doing so for long periods. 
 
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Norwegian Refugee Council. Geneva, Switzerland.