By AFP - Agence France Presse
Five Forgotten Conflicts of 2024
Emilie BICKERTON
The wars in the Middle East and between Ukraine and Russia dominated world headlines in 2024, but several other conflicts are devastating countries and regions.
Here, we'll focus on five of them:
- Sudan - War has been raging in Sudan since April 2023.
Since April 2023, there has been a war in Sudan between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The conflict has left tens of thousands dead, and around 26 million people - roughly half of Sudan's population - face severe food insecurity.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including attacking civilians and blocking humanitarian aid. RSF, in particular, has been accused of ethnic cleansing, rampant looting, and systematic sexual violence.
In October, the UN warned of the “staggering scale” of sexual violence that has been taking place since the beginning of the conflict.
- Haiti - The situation in Haiti
The situation in Haiti, already dire after decades of chronic political instability, escalated further at the end of February, when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital, saying they wanted to overthrow then Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Since then, gangs now control 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and despite a Kenyan-led police support mission backed by the US and the UN, violence has continued to escalate.
In November, the UN said that the verified number of victims of gang violence so far this year was 4,544 dead, and the real figure, it stressed, “is probably even higher.”
Particularly violent acts have targeted women and girls, and victims have been mutilated with machetes, stoned, beheaded, burned, or buried alive.
More than 700,000 people have fled the horror, half of them children, according to the International Organization for Migration.
- Democratic Republic of Congo - The mineral-rich region in the east of the country
The mineral-rich eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to several rival rebel groups, has suffered internal and cross-border violence for more than 30 years.
Since launching an offensive in 2021, a mainly Tutsi militia known as the March 23 movement or M23 - named after a previous peace agreement - has seized large swathes of territory.
The resurgence of the M23 has intensified a decades-long humanitarian disaster in the region, caused by conflict, epidemics, and poverty, mainly in the province of North Kivu.
More than half a million people have fled to camps around the regional capital, Goma, bringing the total number of displaced people in North Kivu to around 2.4 million, according to Human Rights Watch in September.
M23 is supported by the Rwandan government, which believes that the presence of a Hutu extremist group in the east of the DRC constitutes a threat to its borders.
- Sahel -
In the volatile Sahel region of Africa, Islamist groups, rebel groups, and armed gangs dominate the region.
In 2009, in Nigeria, Boko Haram, one of the main jihadist organizations in the Sahel region, launched an insurgency that left more than 40,000 dead and two million homeless.
Since then, Boko Haram has spread to neighboring countries in West Africa.
For example, the vast expanse of water and the swamps on the numerous islets in the Lake Chad region serve as a hideout for Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), which carries out regular attacks on the country's army and civilians.
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger also face persistent jihadist attacks, while any opposition to the military-led governments is repressed.
Since January, jihadist attacks have caused almost 7,000 civilian and military deaths in Burkina Faso, more than 1,500 in Niger, and more than 3,600 in Mali, according to Acled, an NGO that collects data on violent conflicts.
And in a further sign of the region's chronic instability, in July, the West African bloc ECOWAS warned that the Sahel was facing “disintegration” after the military rulers of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso consolidated a separatist union.
- Myanmar -
The Southeast Asian nation has been embroiled in a bloody conflict since 2021 when the military ousted the democratically elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who has been detained by the junta since the coup.
A bitter civil war ensued, causing the deaths of more than 5,300 people and the displacement of around 3.3 million, according to the UN.
The military has faced growing resistance from rebel groups across the country.
In recent months, the rebels have attacked Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, and taken control of the main highway linking Myanmar to China - its main trading partner - thereby depriving the junta of an important source of revenue.
eab/db/dhc
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