Conflicts rage in five nations; thousands slain

A young man reacts after his friend was badly injured by passing Chadian troops during a Dec.23 protest outside Mpoko Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic.

 A young man reacts after his friend was badly injured by passing Chadian troops during a Dec.23 protest outside Mpoko Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic. / Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Written by
Jason Straziuso
Associated Press

John Prendergast, co-founder of the D.C.-based activist group the Enough Project, told a panel this past week at the Brookings Institute discussingAfrica’s greatest challenges in 2014 that international and regional conflict management systems must stop addressing conflicts in isolation.
• That includes adopting comprehensive peace processes and understanding long-term drivers of conflict in negotiations, he said.

NAIROBI, KENYA — The death tolls are huge and the individual incidents gruesome. One estimate says nearly 10,000 people have been killed in South Sudan in a month of warfare, while in neighboring Central African Republic, combatants in Muslim-versus-Christian battles have beheaded children.

Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a very violent start to 2014, with raging conflicts in South Sudan and Central African Republic, as well as continued violence in Congo, and attacks in Somalia and Kenya.

Compared with decades past, Africa and its people are suffering from fewer conflicts today, but several recent outbreaks of violence are cause for concern, said J. Peter Pham, director of the Washington-based think tank Africa Center at the Atlantic Council. The conflicts also lack strong international peacekeeping, he said.

“Peacekeeping in Africa, whether under the formal auspices of the United Nations or those of the African Union, suffers today from the same two limitations which they have been burdened with since the very first U.N. peacekeeping mission, the 1960-1964 operation in the Congo (ONUC) — namely lack of political will resulting in a weak mandate and lack of adequate forces,” he wrote by email.

South Sudan

The conflict that broke out in South Sudan on Dec. 15 saw violence radiate across the country as ethnic groups targeted each other. Shortly afterward, Uganda dispatched troops and military equipment to aid South Sudan’s central government from breakaway units of that country’s military.

Casie Copeland, South Sudan analyst for the International Crisis Group, said violence in Africa tends to involve other countries and noted a “long history of regional involvement in African conflicts.”

The U.N. Security Council on Friday, however, “strongly discouraged external intervention that would exacerbate the military and political tensions.”

Central African Rep.

Civilians in the Central African Republic — a country where violence pits Muslims against Christians — have suffered terribly since armed rebels overthrew the president in March 2013. The mostly Muslim fighters were blamed for scores of atrocities during their rule, and intercommunal violence exploded last month, leaving more than 1,000 dead in a matter of days.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF says two children have been beheaded, and that “unprecedented levels of violence” are being carried out on children. An estimated 935,000 people have been uprooted throughout the country.

The country’s president, Michel Djotodia, the rebel leader who seized control of the country, agreed to resign Friday along with his prime minister.

Somalia, Kenya

Al-Qaida-linked militants in Somalia, long one of the continent’s most violent countries, detonated two car bombs on New Year’s Day, killing at least a half dozen people. Neighboring Kenya, which has forces in Somalia, was hit with a grenade attack the next day on a coastal bar and nightclub, wounding 10 people. Kenya on Friday announced a military operation in Somalia it said killed 30 militants.

Kenya has troops in Somalia, as does Uganda. But Pham argues the conflicts are not receiving enough peacekeepers.