Africa

Clashes over contested Somaliland regions

More than 200 people have died in three weeks of fighting around a disputed town in Somalia’s northern breakaway region of Somaliland. More than 95,000 refugees have reportedly fled into neighboring Ethiopia after three weeks of clashes. Local militias around Las Anod are fighting to pull three administrative regions–Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn–away from Somaliland, with the aim of rejoining Somalia. Meanwhile, Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia that is also in a territorial dispute with neighboring Somaliland, has sent in troops to support the militias. (Map via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

French forces out of Burkina Faso, into Ivory Coast

France has officially ended its operations in Burkina Faso a month after the ruling junta there terminated a military accord that allowed the former colonial power to fight jihadists. French forces remain in the greater region, however. The move came as French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu visited Côte d’Ivoire, pledging to boost military support as jihadist attacks hit coastal West African states. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

Africa

Podcast: West Africa’s forgotten wars

In Episode 161 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides an overview of the under-reported conflicts in West Africa, where government forces and allied paramilitary groups battle multiple jihadist insurgencies affiliated either with ISIS or al-Qaeda on a franchise model. Horrific massacres have been committed by both sides, but the Western media have only recently started to take note because of the geopolitical angle that has emerged: both Mali and Burkina Faso have cut long-standing security ties with France, the former colonial power, and brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. In both countries, the pastoralist Fulani people have been stigmatized as “terrorists” and targeted for extra-judicial execution and even massacre—a potentially pre-genocidal situation. But government air-strikes on Fulani communities in Nigeria have received no coverage in the Western media, because of the lack of any geopolitical rivalry there; Nigeria remains firmly in the Anglo-American camp. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Sahara Reporters)

Africa

Somalia: US raids on ISIS stronghold

A US special forces raid in Somalia ordered by President Joe Biden killed a key regional ISIS leader, Bilal al-Sudani, the Pentagon said in a statement. Sudani apparently died in a gun-battle after US troops descended on a cave complex in a mountainous area of northern Somalia. The statement did not specify the location of the raid, but the announcement followed reports in Somali media describing a US drone strike on a stronghold of the self-declared Islamic State-Somalia in the Cal Miskaad mountains of the autonomous northern region of Puntland. The raid came as the US military has been stepping up attacks on the Qaeda-aligned Shabaab rebels in central Somalia, in conjunction with Somali government and African Union forces. (Map via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

Massacres mount in eastern DRC

Fighters from the ISIS-aligned Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the CODECO ethnic miitia have each carried out multiple massacres of villagers in Ituri and North Kivu provinces of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo over the past weeks. The M23 rebel group, said to be backed by Rwanda, has meanwhile captured new territory in North Kivu, further closing the ring around Goma, the largest city in the DRC’s east. Regional tensions rose after Rwanda fired on a Congolese fighter jet, claiming it had breached its airspace. Kinshasa denied the accusation and called the shooting “an act of war.” (Map: CIA)

Africa

Ethiopia: violence ebbs in Tigray, flares in Oromia

The war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has cooled down since the signing of a peace deal in November. But a separate conflict is intensifying further south, in Oromia, where civilians are suffering as anti-government rebels step up attacks. Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) guerillas were previously confined to the fringes of western and southern Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region. But analysts say the Tigray war created a security vacuum that has helped the OLA expand its long-running insurgency. The security situation is now “fast deteriorating,” the UN’s aid coordination agency, OCHA, warned in a report last month. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been uprooted and essential services are not functioning in some conflict-affected areas. (Map via EthioVisit)

Africa

Ethnically targeted killings in Burkina Faso: report

A human rights group in Burkina Faso reported that 28 people were found shot dead in the town of Nouna, in apparently ethnically targeted killings at the hands of a volunteer militia group. The Collective Against Impunity & Stigmatization of Communities (CISC) said the killings were perpetrated by members of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP). The VDP allegedly killed 21, including children, in a year-end attack in a part of Nouna inhabited by the minority Fula community. The report stated that the VDP appears to have targeted “resourceful” or “influential” people in the community. The report further found that similar extrajudicial executions were carried out by the VDP in the same community earlier in December. The VDP is a citizen militia formed to help the Burkina Faso military fight jihadist rebels. (Photo of VDP fighters: Henry Wilkins/VOA via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

African dissent from biodiversity protocol

The UN Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, concluded in Montreal with what is being hailed as a landmark agreement to address the current unprecedented loss of species, now termed the planet’s sixth mass extinction. The centerpiece of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, conceived as a match to the Paris Agreement on climate change, is the so-called “30×30” pledge—with countries committing to protect 30% of their territory for habitat preservation by 2030. The deal earmarks $30 billion per year to flow from wealthy countries to poor ones to assist in conservation programs. But the financial commitments are not binding, and were assailed by countries in the developing world as inadequate. After an all-night session, the gavel was brought down on the deal minutes after the delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo pressed outstanding criticisms. This was decried by the DRC, Uganda and other African delegations. A representative from Cameroon protested: “What we saw was a force of hand.” (Photo of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley via Pixabay)

Africa

African intrigues over Wagner Group

Burkina Faso’s ruling military authorities summoned Ghana’s ambassador over accusations that they have hired Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to help fight jihadists. Speaking alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said: “Today, Russian mercenaries are on our northern border. Burkina Faso has now entered into an arrangement to go along with Mali in employing the Wagner forces there.” Calling the mercenaries’ presence “distressing,” Akufo-Addo also alleged that Burkina Faso had offered Wagner control of a gold mine as payment. Meanwhile, a Russian national said to be closely linked to the Wagner Group was injured in an apparent assassination attempt in the Central African Republic. Wagner Group’s parent company Concord named French agents as behind the attack. Burkina Faso, Mali and the CAR alike have recently broken long-standing security ties with France, their former colonial ruler—with Russian mercenaries moving in as French soldiers go home. (Photo of CAR army troops wearing the Wagner Group insignia via Corbeau News Centrafrique)

Africa

Thousands flee worsening South Sudan clashes

Among the long list of ostensibly local conflicts that have broken out in South Sudan since a national peace deal was inked in 2018, analysts say the current violence involving Nuer and Shilluk militias in Upper Nile state ranks among the deadliest. Thousands of people have been uprooted since mid-November and there are concerns of an imminent attack on Kodok—a town hosting more than 10,000 displaced Shilluk. Nuer forces have encircled Kodok and cut off escape routes, including to the nearby UN protection camp in Malakal. Though clashes are along communal lines, they were triggered by internal tensions within a splinter group of the country’s main opposition movement, the SPLA-IO. Simon Gatwech (a Lou Nuer) and Johnson Olony (a prominent Shilluk) defected from the group last year before turning on each other. President Salva Kiir has said he “cannot stop” the fighting, though critics say his regime benefits from pitting the feuding factions against each other. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Africa

Sudan: regime spurring Kordofan violence?

At least 30 people were killed and dozens injured in armed clashes between members of the Hamar and Misseriya pastoralist groups in Sudan’s West Kordofan state. A Hamar militia that had been organized to protect against cattle rustlers was apparently ambushed by Misseriya gunmen in the locality of Abu Zabad, setting off the violence. Hamar leaders charge that state authorities and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are protecting Misseriya bands that raid their lands with impunity. In Khartoum, the pro-democracy Resistance Committee is meanwhile calling for continued protests despite the new pact for a transition to civilian rule, saying that any deal must include provisions for transitional justice and reform of the security forces. (Photo: Tim Freccia/Enough Project via Dabanga)

Africa

Ethiopia: continued fighting hinders Tigray aid

A month after the two parties signed a ceasefire agreement, the truce between Ethiopia’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is holding. But while aid flows into Tigray are scaling up, deliveries still aren’t matching needs. The World Food Program reports that while corridors into Tigray have reopened, access to some areas in the region remains off limits. Essential services, including banking and the internet, remain switched off, with no date set for restoring them. And while plans are proceeding for the disarmament of TPLF fighters, that process is complicated by Eritrean and Amhara forces, which were allies to the government during the conflict—and are reportedly still carrying out attacks on civilians in Tigray, including killings, kidnapping and looting. (Map: Political Geography Now)