conflict - The African Mirror

May

2023

By KHALID ABDELAZIZ and MOHAMED NOURELDIN

Heavy fighting in Khartoum; Sudan’s children caught in conflict, UN says

FIERCE fighting persisted in Sudan despite a truce agreement as U.S. intelligence said rival forces were trying to gain the upper hand ahead of possible negotiations and the U.N. warned of the violence's devastating toll on children. Despite multiple ceasefire declarations, the two sides appeared to be battling for control of territory in the capital Khartoum ahead of proposed talks, though the leaders of both factions have shown little public willingness to negotiate after more than two weeks of fighting. The Sudanese army on Thursday sought to dislodge the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary force from its positions near central Khartoum in…

May

2023

By AIDAN LEWIS and TOM PERRY

Analysis: Sudan risks long conflict as entrenched rivals struggle for control

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SUDAN'S warring factions are locked in a conflict that two weeks of fighting shows neither can easily win, raising the spectre of a drawn-out war between an agile paramilitary force and a better-equipped army that could destabilise a fragile region. Even with hundreds of people killed and the capital Khartoum turned into a war zone, there has been little sign of compromise between army commander Abdul-Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commonly known as Hemedti. Foreign mediators have struggled to arrest the slide to war: a series of ceasefires brokered by the United States and others…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Explainer: Sudan’s conflict and what worries neighbours, the U.S. and others

NEWS

A conflict raging in Sudan is rattling neighbouring countries and worrying the United States and others for reasons ranging from concern about shared Nile waters and oil pipelines to the shape of a new government and a new humanitarian crisis in the making. Sudan, which relies heavily on foreign aid, is no stranger to conflict. But this time fighting is tearing apart the capital instead of a remote corner of a nation, which lies in an unstable region bordering the Red Sea, Sahel and Horn of Africa. Five of Sudan's seven neighbours - Ethiopia, Chad, Central African Republic, Libya and South Sudan - have faced political…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Blinken announces $150 mln in new aid for Sahel

NEWS

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $150 million in new humanitarian assistance for Africa's Sahel region, saying it would provide life-saving support to refugees and others impacted by conflict and food insecurity. Making the announcement during a visit to Niger, Blinken said the aid would address needs in Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Mauritania. The package also included funding to support Sahelian refugees in Libya and Niger, he said. Thomson Reuters Foundation

Dec

2022

By The African Mirror

Scramble for Africa: A Rise in Instability and Conflict

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

NONTOBEKO HLELA IN the recent past there has been a resurgence in the importance of the African continent to outsiders. This new ‘scramble’ for Africa – the intense rivalry between today’s big powers, the US, China, Britain and France has already led to military intervention in several African countries, most recently Mali and Libya, the establishment of the US African Command (AFRICOM), in addition to economic and other forms of intervention and external interference throughout the African continent. Nontobeko Hlela In 2019 the US released its New Africa Strategy (2019) which states: ‘Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

Hunger in Africa surges due to conflict, climate and food prices

NEWS

AYENAT MERSIE CONFLICT, climate change and rising food and fuel prices are pushing about a quarter of Africans towards hunger, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. About 346 million people in Africa are facing severe food insecurity, meaning they have likely experienced hunger, in the worst crisis since 2017. Last year, the figure was about 286 million. "The acute food insecurity situation in many of the countries where we are working - and people are already affected by armed conflict - is tipping into famine-like conditions," said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC's global operations director. Two years of conflict…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Generation Crisis: young Syrians come of age in a decade of conflict

WORLD

YAMANM AL SHAAR TRAINEE flight attendant Ghenwa, engineering student Ali and electronic music DJ Jawad are among a generation of young Syrians to have come of age during the war. They live in the capital Damascus, which was spared the intense bombing raids that destroyed opposition bastions such as Aleppo but life for the twenty-somethings is far from normal. A decade of conflict, Western sanctions, a financial collapse in next-door Lebanon, and now, the global pandemic, have battered Syria's economy and a currency crash has sparked shortages of essential goods like wheat and fuel in government territory. Economic hardships aside,…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Ten humanitarian crises and trends to watch in 2021

HUMAN RIGHTS

Fraying deals: Who will keep peace on track? MONOTORING and oversight is important for peacebuilding to succeed, but there may be less money and international bandwidth available as a result of COVID-19 and the global recession. Peace agreements from South Sudan to Colombia to Central African Republic are already faltering; political transitions in Sudan, Mali, and potentially Afghanistan look equally wobbly. While each situation is unique, they all share the need for guarantors to keep what peace there is on track. The African Union is one – but it is cash-strapped and will have its work cut out to deliver on all its…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

What next for Ethiopia and its neighbours: Somalia and Eritrea

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FROM a historical standpoint, the current conflict in Ethiopia fits within an established political pattern. There have been power struggles between the centre and the border regions since the modern Ethiopian state was established in the late 19th century. NAMHLA MATSHANDA, Senior Lecturer, Political Studies, University of the Western Cape The Ethiopian state was built on the back of conquest. Regions that existed on the margins were incorporated into the Ethiopian imperial state. These regions were occupied by groups with vastly different cultures from those of the centre. For example the capture of the Harar city state in 1887 paved…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

Armenia fights war with COVID-19 complicated by Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

WORLD

NVARD HOVHANNISYAN and MARIA TSVETKOVA EMMA Mkrtchyan died at home, bedridden and showing severe symptoms of COVID-19. Even though the 83-year-old Armenian's blood oxygen levels were far below normal, the ambulance called by her family refused to take her to hospital. "Even if they had taken her to hospital, there would anyway have been a queue and no places available," her daughter-in-law, Gayane Mkrtchyan, told Reuters. Armenia's healthcare system is dangerously overstretched as it deals with one of the world's worst COVID-19 outbreaks on top of an influx of refugees and soldiers wounded in Nagorno-Karabakh during the region's bloodiest fighting…