Six is usually just a number. This year, it is a verdict shared by two southern African nations.
Malawi, ranked the world’s sixth poorest country in a recent Global Finance report, and now South Africa, placed sixth globally for intentional homicide at 43.7 killings per 100,000 people. only African nation in the top ten.
StatsPanda’s Homicide Rate by Country 2026, published September 17, places South Africa in the company of other high rate states. Jamaica, 49.4. Ecuador, 45.7. Haiti, 41.2. And Trinidad and Tobago, 40.4.
Topping the rankings are the Turks and Caicos Islands at 76.3 per 100,000, followed by Saint Kitts and Nevis at 64.2 per 100,000 and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines at 51.3 per 100,000.
At the other end, Singapore and Qatar record the world’s lowest rates at 0.1 each.
Across 160 countries analysed, the median rate sits at 2.4 per 100,000, with 79 countries above that line.
The distribution is strongly right skewed. A small number of very high rate countries pull the figures upward, yielding an unweighted mean of 7.6.
Underpinning it all is the World Development Indicators compilation, republished under CC BY 4.0, drawing on data from the World Bank, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and national statistical agencies, standardised for cross country comparison.
StatsPanda cautions that because each country reports on its own schedule, figures are not always from the same year, and countries separated by narrow margins should be read as effectively tied.
