Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded the largest improvement in Europe when it comes the impact of terrorism and is ranked 95th, among the countries with a “very low” terrorism impact, in the Global Terrorism Index 2020.

The Global Terrorism Index is published every year by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank “dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress.”

The total number of deaths caused by terrorism declined for the fifth consecutive year in 2019, “falling by 15 per cent to 13,826 deaths,” the Index said, adding that this marks a “59 percent reduction since the peak in 2014 when 33,438 people were killed in terrorist attacks.”

However, the Institute marked a worrying trend in the past five years – a surge in “far-right political terrorism.”

“In North America, Western Europe, and Oceania, far-right attacks have increased by 250 per cent since 2014, with deaths increasing by 709 per cent over the same period. There were 89 deaths attributed to far-right terrorists in 2019, with 51 of those occurring in the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand. There have been over 35 far-right terrorist incidents in the West every year for the past five years,” the Index said.

Afghanistan tops the list of countries with the highest terrorism impact, followed by Iraq and Nigeria, with a “very high” impact.

Nearly all Western Balkan countries are in the group of 55 countries where the impact of terrorism is “very low,” except for Kosovo, Croatia and Slovenia, where no such impact was determined.

In Europe, “Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded the largest improvement in score in 2019, followed by Austria and Sweden,” the report said, adding that there were only two terrorist attacks recorded in the country in 2019, compared to six the previous year.

“Overall, since 2002, the impact of terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina has improved. Out of 24 attacks recorded since 2002 none were attributed to known terrorist groups. The majority of attacks were attributed to unknown perpetrators, five to Muslim extremists and one to the Wahhabi Movement. Seven fatalities were recorded between 2002 and 2019, with none recorded in 2019,” it said.