Crisis Group (Continuación)

Watch List 2022. Latin America & Caribbean. Tackling Colombia’s Next Generation in Arms

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

Colombia’s hard-won peace is withering in the countryside. Following the signing of the 2016 accord between the state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), levels of violence dropped across much of the country. But armed conflict is now escalating in a small but growing number of rural pockets, where communities report that violence and coercion are as bad as or worse than before the peace agreement.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2022. Europe & Central Asia. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Deterring Disintegration

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

The Dayton peace agreement that has held Bosnia and Herzegovina together since the 1991-1995 war is unravelling. For more than 25 years, that accord has united two self-governing entities – one dominated by ethnic Serbs and the other by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) – in a single state. But now Serb leader Milorad Dodik is threatening to withdraw from state institutions, including the army, that are shared among the country’s three main ethnic groups, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, in a bid for greater autonomy that could be part of a drawn-out process of secession.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2022. Asia. Keeping Kashmir on the Radar

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

Away from the international limelight, the decades-old conflict in Indian-administered Kashmir grinds on, as New Delhi grapples with a Pakistan-backed but largely local separatist insurgency. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government unilaterally scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, abrogated its statehood and redrew its geographic boundaries. The government claimed that its decisions would put an end to militancy in India’s only Muslim-majority region and ensure its economic development.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2022. Asia. Stopping State Failure in Afghanistan

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

Afghanistan is now the site of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, in which millions of children could starve to death. As Crisis Group and others have pointed out, the extension of Taliban-specific sanctions to the entire Afghan state is a primary cause of the Afghan economy’s freefall, along with the cutoff of non-humanitarian aid to the country and the freezing of Afghan state assets held in the United States and Europe.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2022. Africa. Sudan: Toward a Reset for the Transition

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

Sudan’s once-promising transition away from autocratic rule has veered off course. On 25 October 2021, the country’s generals deposed the civilian-led cabinet in a coup, abruptly ending the civilian-military power-sharing arrangement that was to steer the country to free elections. Under considerable international pressure, armed forces chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan reinstated Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on 21 November. That concession did little to mollify protesters furious at the military’s power grab.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Afghan woman walks on the street during a snowfall in Kabul, Afghanistan, 3 January 2022. REUTERS / Ali Khara

The UN Security Council faces hard choices about the future of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). The UN’s role in Afghanistan has grown more important following the Taliban victory in August 2021 and the shuttering of many embassies and international organisations. UNAMA, originally launched in 2002 after the U.S. toppled the first Taliban government, has stayed in place, acting as a point of contact for engagement with the new Taliban authorities. The mission also has the potential to serve as the “eyes and ears” on the ground for outside powers and aid donors, monitoring the human rights situation and coordinating the work of UN agencies in responding to the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2022. Africa. Ethiopia: Giving Talks a Chance

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

Ethiopia: Giving Talks a Chance

Ethiopia enters 2022 at an impasse in its civil war that opens a narrow window for peace. The conflict between the federal authorities and Tigray regional government has devastated the country’s north, leaving tens of thousands dead. In November 2020, political discord led to armed confrontation, with federal units, allied forces from Amhara region, which neighbours Tigray, and Eritrean troops moving into Tigray.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2022. Europe and the Ukraine Crisis

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

President’s Take: Europe and the Ukraine Crisis

As we go to press, Russian troops are gathering in ever larger numbers at Ukraine’s border. If the crisis escalates, it could pose the gravest threat to European security in decades, which is why Ukraine topped our global rundown of the world‘s most pressing conflicts in 2022 and why I’m covering it here. One can only hope that the frantic diplomacy currently under way will avert what could be an enormously destructive war.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters hold a long banner which reads: “We are the ordinary people, not terrorists”, at the Republic Square in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty on Friday 7 Jan 2022 as unprecedented protests over a hike in energy prices spun out of control. EyePress News via AFP

What prompted the protest wave that swept through Kazakhstan over the past two weeks?

On 2 January, protesters came out into the streets of the petroleum-producing city of Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan. They were angry because the government had removed a price cap, leading to doubled fuel prices. While the government’s stated reason for the move was “marketisation”, semi-nationalised monopolies in fact control both supplies and prices. The protests spread rapidly across the country, first to other oil- and mineral-producing regions and then to most districts of Kazakhstan, whose population of some nineteen million is dispersed across a territory the size of Western Europe.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cameroonian policemen patrol the market in the majority English-speaking South West province in Buea, on October 3, 2018. MARCO LONGARI / AFP

About a billion people around the world are expected to watch 24 football teams compete in the Africa Cup of Nations, kicking off on 9 January and running through 6 February in Cameroon. Matches will take place in stadiums around the country, including eight games in Limbe and Buea, cities in the English-speaking South West region, that will put a spotlight on the armed conflict between the government and Anglophone separatists. Anglophone militias have announced plans to disrupt the Cup, hoping to showcase their grievances. The government has responded with severe restrictions upon movement and association in the Anglophone North West and South West.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian service members walk on the front line at the industrial zone of government-held town of Avdiyivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 17, 2021. REUTERS/Oleksandr Klymenko

Troubling undercurrents in 2021 – from the U.S. to Afghanistan, Ethiopia or the climate emergency – didn’t send battle deaths soaring or set the world ablaze. But as our look ahead to 2022 shows, many bad situations round the world could easily get worse.

Click here to explore this year's interactive version of 10 Conflicts to Watch.

After a year that saw an assault on the U.S. Capitol, horrific bloodshed in Ethiopia, a Taliban triumph in Afghanistan, great-power showdowns over Ukraine and Taiwan amid dwindling U.S. ambition on the global stage, COVID-19, and a climate emergency, it’s easy to see a world careening off the tracks.…  Seguir leyendo »

Women wait during a food distribution organized by the Amhara government near the village of Baker, 50 km southeast of Humera, in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, on July 11, 2021. EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP

On 19 December, the leader of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region announced that Tigray’s forces would pull back to their home region, marking yet another significant turnabout in Ethiopia’s brutal thirteen-month civil war. Tigray’s leadership said they had taken the decision to open space for negotiations. Addis Ababa, meanwhile, asserted that its counter-offensives had succeeded in pushing Tigray’s forces back. The latest shifts – and particularly the Tigray leader’s call for talks – afford a rare chance for a cessation of hostilities that all parties must seize. All should stop shooting immediately. In a welcome move, the federal government responded on 22 December by saying it will not push further into Tigray to try to completely defeat the resistance.…  Seguir leyendo »

How UN Member States Divided Over Climate Security

On 13 December, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on climate security tabled by Ireland and Niger. This draft resolution was a relatively modest text, focusing on improving the UN’s analysis of the links between climate change and instability in countries and regions on the Council’s agenda, and requesting the Secretary-General to produce a report on these issues by December 2023. Russia argued that there was not enough evidence to justify these links and complained that the Irish and Nigeriens had made insufficient efforts to secure consensus for their initiative. While twelve Council members voted for the resolution, India opposed it on similar grounds to Russia, and China abstained.…  Seguir leyendo »

A police officer talks to new volunteers who registered to conduct night patrols during the ceremony for new military recruits who are joining the Ethiopian National Defence Force in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 24, 2021. Amanuel Sileshi / AFP

Ethiopia’s civil war has taken another turn. After months on the back foot, federal troops and allied militias launched a counteroffensive in late November, retaking several towns in Amhara and Afar regions. Tigray forces, which had come within a few hundred kilometres of the capital, halted their advance and withdrew north. Tigray leaders say the setback is temporary. For his part, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, having staked so much on the Tigray resistance’s defeat, is also committed to keep fighting. But given the popular support and mobilisation on both sides, neither is likely to deliver a mortal blow to the other.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Ukrainian serviceman walks along a trench on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists not far from Gorlivka, Donetsk region, on 26 November 2021. Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP

What’s new? A second large-scale Russian military buildup near Ukraine's borders in 2021 has raised fears of a major war between the two countries.

Why did it happen? With peace talks stalled, Moscow appears disillusioned with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even as it has not abandoned its goal of an aligned Ukraine, which it sees as increasingly threatened by that country’s ever closer military cooperation with NATO member states.

Why does it matter? Although Moscow may hope the threat of war alone will attain its goals, it has already proven its willingness to fight in Ukraine. A Russian military offensive would have horrific immediate effects and risk escalation as NATO countries that have vocally supported Ukraine respond with a range of tools.…  Seguir leyendo »

South Sudanese refugees try to repair their hut in flooded waters from the White Nile at a refugee camp which was inundated after heavy rain near in al-Qanaa in southern Sudan, on 14 September 2021. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP

The UN Security Council is set to vote on a resolution calling for stepped up international efforts to understand and respond to the implications of climate change for peace and security. Ireland and Niger, two elected members of the body, put the draft “in blue” – meaning the text is in near-final form – late on 6 December. On 9 December, Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum will preside over a Council session on climate change and terrorism. A vote on the draft resolution could come as soon as 10 December, or early next week. China and Russia are not supportive, and either could decide to veto.…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of a feminist collective attend a protest against the Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs) and the government of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras September 15, 2021. REUTERS/Fredy Rodriguez

¿Qué hay de nuevo? Honduras celebrará elecciones generales a fines de noviembre en medio de una polarización política y crisis humanitaria. Ya que el presidente saliente podría enfrentar una investigación judicial, y los organismos electorales recientemente creados no han sido puestos a prueba, el país corre el riesgo de que se repitan protestas desestabilizadoras como las que siguieron a las disputadas elecciones de 2017.

¿Por qué importa? Las crisis humanitarias y la inestabilidad han azotado a Honduras desde el golpe de Estado de 2009 que sacudió el establecimiento político. Unas elecciones polémicas podrían provocar disturbios postelectorales y acelerar la salida de migrantes y solicitantes de asilo hacia México y EE.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sudanese protesters lift national flags as they rally on 60th Street in the capital Khartoum, to denounce overnight detentions by the army of government members. 25 October 2021. AFP

Sudan is in peril. On 25 October, just weeks after a failed coup attempt, the country’s generals removed the civilian-led government that had been piloting a transition after an uprising unseated long-serving ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. Soldiers surrounded Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s residence in the capital Khartoum, detaining him and other senior officials. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who headed the Sovereign Council, a joint civilian-military body that has governed the country since August 2019, announced its dissolution, declaring a nationwide state of emergency. Reaction to the coup from the street was swift. Thousands of protesters massed in Khartoum and across the country, raising the spectre of a reprise of past crackdowns on dissent.…  Seguir leyendo »

Smoke billows as Lebanese Army soldiers take a position in the area of Tayouneh, in the southern suburb of the capital Beirut on 14 October 2021, after clashes following a demonstration by supporters of Hezbollah and the Amal movements. JOSEPH EID / AFP

A new round of violence in Lebanon has claimed seven lives and called into question the viability of an independent judicial investigation into the causes of the devastating August 2020 Beirut port blast. Shooting broke out in Beirut on 14 October when supporters of the Shiite parties Hizbollah and Amal marched to the Palace of Justice, located in a Christian neighbourhood, to demand that a judge investigating the port explosion be replaced. Resort to arms by those parties, as well some of their opponents, and the increasingly sectarian nature of violence in Lebanon evokes the divisions of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2021 – Autumn Update

Every year Crisis Group publishes two additional Watch List updates that complement its annual Watch List for the EU, most recently published in January 2021. These publications identify major crises and conflict situations where the European Union and its member states can generate stronger prospects for peace. The Autumn Update of the Watch List 2021 includes entries on Afghanistan, Burundi, Iran, Nagorno-Karabakh and Nicaragua.

Thinking Through the Dilemmas of Aid to Afghanistan

Afghanistan is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis – driven by displacement, drought, the COVID-19 pandemic and a struggling economy – that has sharply worsened since the Taliban’s takeover and the prior government’s collapse on 15 August.…  Seguir leyendo »