Mapped: Where are people most at risk of genocide and mass killings?

Screenshot of map showing where people are at risk of death
Syria is again the country where people are most under threat as a new report warns that continued violence means mass population movement is inevitable

Continued threats of violence, genocide and death means that mass migration is inevitable as the world ignores persecution worldwide, a new report has warned.

The continued risk of systematic violent repression and political violence means that refugee flight is "only a matter of time", according to international human rights organisation, Minority Rights Group International (MRG).

The organisation has released its latest Peoples Under Threat index in which it ranks countries according to 10 criteria including the flight of refugees, political stability or lack thereof, armed conflict, prior genocide and the rule of law.

The Telegraph has mapped the results of below with the results from 2015 as well. - the darker the country, the greater the threat of violence.

Unsurprisingly, Syria tops the list of countries where people are at risk of persecution, violence and death or who have fled for the same reasons. Nearly half a million people are believed to have been killed during the five-year civil war in the country that has left six million internally displaced and another four million forced to flee the country.

Last year, Syria was again the most dangerous but in 2014, Somalia and Sudan - where conflicts also rage - were first and second in the index respectively.

MRG said that Middle East and Africa dominated their index, noting that "Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, Turkey, Ukraine and Azerbaijan were among the most significant risers". The organisation warned that the situation was getting worse with increasing threats to people's daily lives.

"Peoples under Threat demonstrates that although the prediction of mass killing has improved substantially since the 1990s, prevention mechanisms are still woefully inadequate. In particular in 2016, there is a global failure to address the needs of highly vulnerable internally displaced populations, making new refugee flight only a matter of time,’ Mark Lattimer, MRG’s executive director, said.

"Just in South Sudan and Iraq, for example, there are five million internally displaced victims of ethnic or sectarian persecution, but the UN's crisis response plans are barely one-quarter funded. Meanwhile, the situation in the two most significant refugee embarkation points for Europe, Libya and Turkey, is rapidly deteriorating," Mr Lattimer added.

Ukraine and Libya moved six and five places up in the index, reflecting the deteriorating situation in the countries. The human rights organisation pointed to the violence in eastern Ukraine where more than 2,500 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million forced to flee because of the conflict between the state and Russian-backed separatists.

Ukrainian servicemen with a member of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (C) inspect a damaged house after recent shelling in the eastern Ukrainian settlement Nikolaevka, Donetsk area
Ukrainian servicemen with a member of the state emergency service (C) inspect a damaged house after recent shelling in the eastern Ukrainian settlement of Nikolaevka, Donetsk area on June 6 Credit: Sergey Vaganov/EPA
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