how many armed conflicts are going on in africa

The security situation in West Africa deteriorated rapidly in 2020, with armed transnational religious groups extending their grip in the region. There were 22 multilateral peace operations active in sub-Saharan Africa during the year-2 more than in 2019. Security dilemmas in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 were also shaped by election-related violence and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as water insecurity and the growing impact of climate change.Ī peace process in Sudan was the only one in sub-Saharan Africa to make sub-stantive progress in 2020. The conflict dynamics and ethnic and religious tensions were often rooted in a combination of state weakness, corruption, ineffective delivery of basic services, competition over natural resources, inequality and a sense of marginal-ization. The total regional increase was about 41 per cent, giving the region the most conflict-related fatalities globally.Īlmost all the armed conflicts were internationalized, including as a result of state actors and the transnational activities of violent Islamist groups, other armed groups and criminal networks.

Except for CAR and Somalia, all the other 18 armed conflicts had higher estimated conflict-related fatalities in 2020 than in 2019.

Ten were low-intensity, sub-national armed conflicts, and 10 were high-intensity armed conflicts (Nigeria, the DRC, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mali, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Cameroon and Niger).

There were at least 20 states (out of a total of 49 states) with active armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020: Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

How many armed conflicts are going on in africa