People living in the war-torn nations of Somalia and Libya are actually happier with their countries than those living in Africa’s top economies Nigeria and South Africa, according to The World Happiness Report 2016.

The report that ranked 156 nations worldwide showed that Libya and Somalia were the third and fourth happiest  nation in Africa after Algeria — which was still the top on the continent in 2015 — and Mauritius.

Nigeria, which slipped from the third position last year, came in at the sixth position on the continent, while South Africa close the top ten list.

Economic challenges facing these two countries due to the commodity price rout on the international markets and a series of other local factors are to blame for the drop in Nigeria’s and South Africa’s happiness index.

The World Happiness index is produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), an initiative under the United Nations. It include variables such as real GDP per person, healthy life expectancy, corruption levels and social freedoms.

The index uses happiness as a measure of socio-economic progress and encourages nations to use it to guide their public policies.

Denmark was ranked as the happiest nation in the world, followed by Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland. The US came in 13th place, while the UK was the 23rd happiest nation in the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa was the least happiest region despite improving fortunes on a continent that has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, Quartz Africa reported.

African countries made up eight of the bottom 10 happy nations. These included Burundi, Benin, Rwanda, Guinea, Liberia, Tanzania and Madagascar.