But there’s a third issue hiding in the background, and it has to do with interstate peacemaking in Africa. In 2012, a new federal government was constituted. It is closely observed that the majority of current conflicts in Africa are more of arms conflicts. Peace agreements for countries such as the Central African Republic, Mali, and Somalia first cater to the interests of the regional powerbrokers and only second deal with internal issues. Conflict Trends in Africa, 1989–2017 ISBN: 978-82-7288-886-1 (print) 978-82-7288-887-8 (online) • In the past five years, there has been an increase in the number of conflicts in Africa. Despite gains against the group, Al-Shabaab insurgents continue to launch sporadic attacks against civilians and the government. Nearly 3,000 women were killed in South Africa in 2017/18, according to the South African Police Service. A 2015 peace deal fell apart after clashes between government forces and rebels. African Continental Free Trade Agreement. In April 2019, Khalifa Haftar, the head of the self-styled Libyan National Army, which controls much of the countryside, launched an attack on Tripoli. Between 1998 and 2000, the two countries fought an extremely bloody border war. Many of these groups fight each other, while others from neighbouring countries use the Congolese territory to launch attacks on their home countries. Listed below are the current wars and conflicts in the continent of Africa. View the latest Africa news and videos from Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Libya, Liberia and other African countries on CNN.com. There have been only a handful of regime change invasions—such as when Tanzania toppled Uganda’s Idi Amin in 1979, and Libya’s invasion of Chad under Muammar al-Qaddafi. The two governments have spent long periods actively but covertly attacking the other. Futhermore, UNSOM is helping build the Federal Government’s capacity to promote respect for human rights and women’s empowerment, promote child protection, and prevent conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence. Also at play is Chadian President Idriss Déby’s desired role as preferred African counterterrorism enforcer, which keeps his elite troops on the international payroll and gives him a free pass for domestic repression. International policymakers shouldn’t be taken by surprise when the contours of Africa’s interstate armed rivalries suddenly come into view. Key events that shaped the Middle East and North Africa in 2019. The killing of a top nuclear scientist has unsettled Tehran, but it’s still talking about a new deal with the United States. It reveals a story of pan-African cooperation to support anti-colonial insurgencies in southern Africa; of mutual destabilization in the Horn of Africa, as Ethiopia sought to cement its position as regional hegemon and undermined governments in Somalia and Sudan and they reciprocated; of Libya’s invasion of Chad and sponsorship of rebels across the Sahel and West Africa to try to establish Muammar al-Qaddafi as the big man of Africa; of rivalries between Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso fought out in Liberia and Sierra Leone; and of how the path towards Africa’s “great war” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was paved by interstate armed rivalries and proxy wars in the African Great Lakes, the Nile Valley, and Angola. Scratch below the surface of any civil war and there’s usually a foreign sponsor to be found. In seeking to explain the violence that has struck the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) over the past two decades, analysis to date has focused predominantly on ideological and identity-based factors. Insecurity persists in the DR Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Mali and Libya. Without a central administration, Somalia became a failed state, with rival warlords and different groups controlling the capital Mogadishu and other southern parts of the country. About two million people have fled their homes and another 22,000 are missing, believed to have been conscripted. More than 30,000 people have been killed in Nigeria’s long-running conflict with Boko Haram. Current Wars of Africa . Armed groups started competing for power. Each country also deployed its own troops clandestinely in the other’s territory—Ethiopian commanders led operations under the flag of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), for example. Now, they’ve found a new hero in Abiy Ahmed. A second deadline to form a unity government has passed with Mr Machar expressing concerns over some unresolved issues. Last year’s peace deal for South Sudan was first and foremost a pact between the country’s two meddlesome neighbors, Sudan and Uganda. He embraced Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, opened the border and promised to implement the controversial boundary ruling. In December 2015, the warring parties signed the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA), committing to a Government of National Accord (GNA). List of ongoing Conflicts. Many of the current conflicts are driven by prospects of political power or financial gain, with armed groups fighting to acquire valuable mineral resources, assert their ideology or address grievances. Michelle D. Gavin CFR Blog, "Africa in Transition" February 6, 2019 African Leaders Must Act to Stop Electoral Fraud in Congo Michelle D. Gavin Foreign Policy January 9, 2019 ... interstate conflict. However, the GNA, which is recognised by the UN, continues to face opposition from within the HoR and GNC. Current Conflicts In Africa 2020 And Where They Occur. They also protect civilians, support the re-establishment of state institutions and basic services, and support the cantonment, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of armed groups. African governments are seen as too weak to project power as far as their borders, let alone across them. Shortly after coming to power last year, Ethiopia’s Ahmed cut this Gordian knot and flew to the Eritrean capital Asmara to offer peace. In several countries, incumbent long serving political leaders have found ways to manipula… A multinational joint task force of about 10,500 troops from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria is currently battling the insurgency. First, it was the struggle for independence from the colonial rule then liberation from dictatorships that merged from independence. Certainly it’s better for such military operations to be internationally mandated and monitored. This month, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the bold steps he took last year to make peace with Eritrea. It works to support peace consolidation, assist in protecting civilians, create suitable conditions for the delivery of humanitarian assistance, among other tasks. So far, the mission has suffered somewhere between around 750 and 1,150 fatalities—losses that could only be borne by countries with national-security stakes in the outcome. In West Africa, the countries include Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Long considered domestic issues, the continent’s battles are really international contests for influence and power. Russia has been accused of backing the coup that took place in August 2020, orchestrated by high ranking members of the Malian army. But the terms of the peace deal were never implemented. The Mano River countries of West Africa—Liberia, Sierra Leone, and their neighbors—followed the same pattern. Scores of Chadian soldiers have died, a price that the country’s government is willing to pay because of its own security interests. With approximately 14,000 peacekeepers, MINUSCA continues to support the implementation of the peace deal and its other mandated tasks. The new data doesn’t invalidate dominant stories about how African conflicts originate or escalate. ), and global conflicts in which Africa was a theatre of war. Rather, power hierarchies have been legitimized, and peace operations have become part of dominant states’ repertoire of power projection. The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) was established in September 2011 to assist the country’s transitional authorities in their post-conflict efforts. Ethiopia gradually gained the upper hand, launching a vast ground offensive in the spring of 2000 that cut through the defending Eritrean forces and threatened to capture the capital, Asmara. Africa. But it adds a new layer of explanations. Official pleas of ignorance or incapacity to police a border are a convenient excuse. The country went through three presidents in a week in November—and it might soon have another if it doesn’t pursue a constitutional referendum like neighboring Chile. Are terrorist groups stoking local conflicts in the Sahel? About Wars and Post-War Conflicts. Currently led by Abubakar Shekau, the jihadist group’s initial objective was to confront what it perceived as the westernization of Nigerian culture. Burkina Faso. In the DRC, the U.N. Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) is a combat force to supplement the peacekeeping mission, with the aim of suppressing violent insurgents in the east of the country. Furthermore, it is involved in disarmament, demobilisation and community violence reduction efforts. That didn’t happen: The Ethiopians agreed a cease-fire and the terms of a peace deal, signed in Algiers soon after the offensive. Rumors of Russian involvement in Mali have gained momentum since 2018. More than 600,000 people are internally displaced, and thousands have been killed. Others simply exploit the country’s mineral resources, including gold, platinum and coltan fueling the various conflicts further. The report says, African countries have undergone two forms of governance liberation, yet remain stuck in the middle of a third one. Western leaders long saw the authoritarian Meles Zenawi as an indispensable ally. Somalia is a case in point. As part of its women, peace and security efforts, it is actively working to increase women’s participation in political processes. MINUSMA is one of the UN’s most challenging operations and it has suffered significant casualties in recent years. Most of the time, involvement in a neighbor’s war is authorized at the highest level and implemented systematically, if secretively, by military intelligence or national security. The Nobel award should alert policymakers to an underappreciated danger to peace and security in Africa: interstate war, either overt or—more often—covert and through proxies. It also will attract greater attention from the international partners, which increasingly view Peace agreements follow the same pattern. Take the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partner has signaled he is ready for fresh elections amid an impasse over a 2021 budget. Below are some examples of current Conflicts In Nigeria. In the first half of 2019, about 732,000 new displacements were recorded, 718,000 associated with conflict and 14,000 associated with disasters, posing additional challenges for the new DRC government. The SPLA fought against Oromo rebels inside Ethiopia in the 1980s; the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front in turn repelled an SPLA operation inside Sudan’s Blue Nile province in 1990. Fifteen Countries There are currently fifteen African countries involved in war, or are experiencing post-war conflict and tension. African wars are seen instead as domestic, civil wars. current edition: US edition News Opinion Sport Culture ... it could take the Horn of Africa with it. Ethiopian forces routed the courts union, paving the way for the government in exile to return home. The nature of violent conflicts in Africa has changed since before independence when they were mostly ideologically-driven guerilla warfare. After a brutal civil war, South Sudan declared its independence from Sudan in 2011. The continent's economy grew by roughly 3.4 percent in 2017, creating one of the longest stretches of uninterrupted positive economic expansion in Africa's history. But is the Nobel Prize an effort to make amends or influence Ethiopia’s political future? Fighting has been between the House of Representatives’ (HoR) which came into office in 2014 and controls eastern and southern Libya and its Tripoli-based rival, the General National Congress (GNC). Among the several armed groups are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda; the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group based in the Rwenzori Mountains of eastern Congo; the Lord’s Resistance Army, another Ugandan rebel group based along the northern border; the National Forces of Liberation, a Burundian rebel group operating in South Kivu; and the Mai-Mai militias operating in the Kivu. Communities were divided, trade was cut, and vast numbers of Eritrean youth served indefinite compulsory military service on the front line. It was mandated to protect civilians, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and support national efforts to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate former combatants and armed elements. Fighting between armed Islamist groups and pro-government forces has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and the displacement of over two million people. In 2009, Eritrea’s support for anti-Ethiopian jihadi groups in Somalia brought down the wrath of the U.N. Security Council, which imposed a draconian sanctions regime on the country—one that continued even after Eritrea abandoned its backing for those groups three years later. Prior to this, a sizable number of Tuareg rebels had moved to Libya to join Muammar Gaddafi’s fighting forces. Pentagon Says UAE Possibly Funding Russia’s Shadowy Mercenaries in Libya, What Iran’s Leaders Really Think About Biden, Israel Is the Wrench in Biden’s Iran Policy. Matters have also been strained between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement led by President Salva Kiir, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition led by Mr. Kiir’s former vice president Riek Machar. Hundreds and thousands of people have lost their lives due to conflicts and civil wars. Two million more young people will be in employment. The war in the DRC is one of Africa’s deadliest. Although the poverty rate in Africa has dropped in recent years, rapid population growth … ... October 22, 2019, 2:14 PM. Editorial The conflict in South Sudan was all too predictable. The countries’ leaders both promised change, but only one has delivered. The region will hold presidential elections in at least nine countries, including Nigeria and South Africa. Much has been written about the ongoing conflict over the status of the Southern Cameroons. An estimated 80,000 young men and women died, almost all of them soldiers who perished in mass infantry attacks. The Somali Civil War (the 1980s – date) This is an ongoing civil war in Somalia. The conflicts in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. And indeed, since African countries achieved independence in the 1950s and 1960s—and especially since 1964, when the newly founded Organisation of African Unity adopted its “Cairo Declaration” on the inviolability of inherited colonial boundaries—there have been few border wars and just two successful secessions (Eritrea and South Sudan). Uprisings, elections and conflicts: some of the key moments of an eventful year in the region. Notably, when an international boundary commission awarded a small but symbolically crucial piece of land called Badme, where the war had started, to Eritrea, Ethiopia refused to hand it over. Burkina Faso is the latest country to fall victim to the instability plaguing Africa’s … The mission would be inconceivable without some real advantage to the national interests of its major troop contributors. The Malian government and two coalitions of these armed groups — the Plateforme and Coordination — signed the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali in May 2015. In South Sudan, there are 64 tribes, among these tribes is Dinkas which is the largest of all. Al Shabaab carried out attacks against the government, prompting the deployment of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in 2007. The Boko Harem insurgency in Nigeria that began in 2009 has extended to neighbouring countries, including Cameroon, Chad and Niger. 5 goals. Such conflicts are likely to follow the established patterns of combining covert intervention and support to proxies, but overt wars cannot be ruled out. Instead, armed rivalry takes different, disguised forms: covert war and proxy war between states is common—in fact, it’s standard. Our economy will grow at a much faster rate than our population. It began in 1998 with the involvement of about 20 different armed groups who maraud the country’s vast jungles. It was a bold move—precisely the kind of peacemaking that the Nobel committee has had in mind for its peace prizes since they were established in 1901—and Ahmed has been appropriately honored. Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The same year Al-Shabaab declared allegiance to the militant group al-Qaeda. Africa’s ‘Civil Wars’ Are Regional Nightmares. Security conditions deteriorated further in December when clashes erupted between various armed groups. The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was established in April 2013 to support political processes and bolster security in the country. There have been several attacks on civilians in the Sahel in the past few months and violence related to local conflicts in the area this year has reached unprecedented levels.. Yirgou village in north … The conventional wisdom is that African states frequently go to war, but not with one another—with the Eritrean-Ethiopian war standing as the conspicuous exception that proves the rule. No person in South Africa will go hungry. The FIB’s main troop contributors are South Africa and Tanzania—both of which have political interests in keeping Rwanda’s ambitions in check. But that’s rare. As with every world region, peace and security in Africa exists in a tension between international proscriptions against war and the rules of real power. Historyguy.com Historyguy.com>Current Wars of Africa. This includes support to implementation of the LPA and future phases of the transition process. The UN Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) also helps to strengthen institutions for reconciliation, law enforcement and justice, and the equitable management of natural resources. For almost 20 years, the two countries were locked in a cold war, with their armies mobilized in force along their common border. The most powerful of those armed groups are backed by Rwanda. In 2012, the Tuareg separatist rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawa (MNLA) conquered northern Mali. Meanwhile, the two governments did everything they could to destabilize each other by supporting each other’s political opposition, including guerrilla groups that infiltrated across the border. Sometimes the rebels were even drafted in as counterinsurgents in their hosts’ own countries. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ethiopia and Sudan each sponsored rebels in the neighboring country with training camps, arms, and logistics, through policy decisions made right at the top. Since civil war broke out in 2013, about 380,000 people are reported to have been killed and more than two million have been forced to flee their homes. A new “revitalized” peace agreement was signed in 2018 however progress is slow. The UN, the African Union and others are cooperating in support of the agreement to end violence against civilians, strengthen the extension of state authority and bring social and economic development to the country. The Center for Preventive Action's (CPA) Global Conflict Tracker is an interactive guide to ongoing conflicts around the world of concern to the United States. It will remain bogged down in conflicts in the Cameroon, Central African Republic, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Somalia. Researcher Matthias Basedau says weak African states are a major cause. The threat is growing and can easily be predicted, and now is a good moment to put it on the policy radar. About 18,500 UN peacekeepers, including military and police personnel, provide security for civilians threatened by the armed groups and support the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants. When Nigeria, which sees itself as the West African regional hegemon, sent troops to Liberia in 1990, ostensibly as a West African peacekeeping force (the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group), the aim wasn’t only to stabilize Liberia and prevent Taylor from taking power, but also to rein in Compaoré’s ambitions and cement Nigeria’s status as the West African powerbroker. More than 112 girls remain missing. Despite efforts by various stakeholders to establish a peaceful Africa, armed conflicts continue in parts of the continent. A few managed to escape or be rescued. If one place has borne the brunt of international lawlessness over the past year it is Yemen. ... Africa. Up to 500 killed in South Sudan as violence spreads, says UN. They returned with sophisticated weapons to join the 2012 attack on northern Mali after the fall of Gaddafi’s government. More than five million people have been killed in the Congolese war, according to the news agency Reuters. Occasionally this is just a matter of a government quietly tolerating the guerrillas from a neighboring country using a refugee camp to recruit or a porous border to smuggle weapons. On the ground, it was World War I-style trench warfare; in the air, there were dogfights between fourth-generation jet fighters. All these issues are key drivers of what to expect in political Africa in 2019. The ongoing conflict in Libya began in 2011 after the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and centres mostly around the control of territory and oil fields. 2019-10-14. It works with the media in Africa and beyond to promote the work of the United Nations, Africa and the international community to bring peace and development to Africa. A study by a German academic says religious conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa have been on the rise for decades. The Somali civil war began in 1991 when the government of President Siad Barre was overthrown. This fighting persists and has been further complicated by the fragmentation and reforming of alliances. In East Africa, the countries include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda. A UN arms embargo continues to be breached with both sides drawing on international support for weapons. It examines the many issues confronting the people of Africa, its leaders and its international partners: economic reform, debt, education, health, women's advancement, conflict and civil strife, democratization, aid, investment, trade, regional integration, rural development and many other topics. CAR has suffered more than six years of conflict. Similar calculations underpin Chad’s dispatch of special forces to Operation Barkhane in Mali, which is a French-led military intervention to fight al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other insurgent groups. African Continental Free Trade Agreement. However, they are not the only issues to consider. A boy living in a derelict building damaged during the Angolan civil war is seen through a hole in Kuito, in Angola’s Bie province, on June 2. This is a bold plan which I believe we will achieve. The initial trigger was the Séléka armed opposition entering the capital city Bangui in March 2013 in opposition to then-President François Bozizé and effectively seizing control of the country. A peacekeeper on the UN base in Kida, Mali, where they ensure the security of the civilian population. However, fighting continues with armed Islamist groups attacking civilians, state counterterrorism actions, and intercommunal violence. In 2015, Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS, rebranding his organisation as the Islamic State in West Africa. As the norms and principles of the United Nations and the African Union are weakened, the danger of interstate war in Africa increases. Disorder spread across ACLED’s areas of coverage last year, with political violence and protest surging in more countries than they declined. While some of the world’s leading economies struggle to … That puts the murder rate for adult women at nearly 15.2 per 100,000, fact-checking organisation Africa Check calculated. During the last 15 years, as the African Union and United Nations, along with regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States, have constructed a new peace and security order for Africa, these patterns of armed interstate rivalry have not gone away. 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The genesis of the conflict and the issues at stake have been well covered elsewhere. Share on: Updated on November 28 2020. The UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) provides policy advice to the Somali government and AMISOM on security sector reforms, disengaging combatants, rule of law, among other issues. In 2019, there were 14 disputes in Sub-Saharan Africa. It encompasses colonial wars, wars of independence, secessionist and separatist conflicts, major episodes of national violence (riots, massacres, etc. The 15,000 uniformed and civilian personnel work to support the implementation of the peace agreement and reduce violence. This list of ongoing armed conflicts identifies present-day conflicts and the death toll … These trends show few signs of stopping in 2019, as conflict and unrest threaten to expand in scope and scale. The Al-Shabaab militant group emerged as an offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union which controlled Mogadishu in 2006, while a transitional federal government was in exile in Kenya. In response, the UN Security Council established the UN Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in April 2014. In a recent article in the Journal of Modern African Studies, some colleagues and I found that just 30 percent of African conflicts since 1960 were “internal” and the remainder a mixture of “internationalized internal” and “interstate”: fully 70 percent were actually internationalized in one way or another. Analyses of security threats in the continent focus on fragile and failing states, ethnic rivalries, violent extremism, and conflict over natural resources. The backbone of the African Union Mission in Somalia, a combat mission against the militant group al-Shabab, is made up of troops from next-door Ethiopia and Kenya, both of which have used force against Somalia many times over the previous decades. More than 50% of the world’s armed conflicts are in one continent, Africa, and analysts agree that diamonds and other precious metals as well as power struggles are the biggest causes. However, tensions persisted over natural resources, specifically access to the oil fields in newly-independent South. While seasoned federal officials are being fired, Trump’s loyalists are coming back, threatening fresh tensions between the outgoing administration and Congress. What has not been clearly articulated is the role religion is playing in the conflict and the effect the conflict is having on the religious imagination in the region. Across the continent, in other words, old patterns of cross-border conflict are now replicated under the banner of peacekeeping, endorsed by the United Nations, the African Union, and Africa’s regional organizations. This article draws on research conducted jointly with Noel Twagiramungu, Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe, and Allard Duursma. The media are abuzz with two big questions: first, whether Ahmed deserves it, and second, why Afwerki was not honored—as is customary when two countries make peace. Since then several other armed groups emerged or splintered off from existing ones with different interests related to self-determination and political and socio-economic grievances. In Africa, this rarely takes the form of conventional wars over boundaries or invasions to install a new regime. Ethnic violence in South Sudan (from 2011 to date) Ethnic violence in South Sudan has been before 2011, it has a long history among South Sudan’s varied ethnic groups. The Nobel award should alert policymakers to an underappreciated danger to peace and security in Africa: interstate war, either overt or—more often—covert and through proxies. Poverty. Africa Security Sub-Saharan Africa Russia’s Strategy in Africa. The humanitarian crisis there – the world’s worst – could deteriorate further in 2019 if the key players do not seize the opportunity created over the past weeks by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths in achieving a partial ceasefire and encouraging a series of confidence-building steps. However, insecurity and attacks against civilians, humanitarians, and UN peacekeeping forces continue. The Africa Renewal information programme provides up-to-date information and analysis of the major economic and development challenges facing Africa today. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was established in 2011 and consists of about 17,000 uniformed and civilian personnel. While some of the world’s leading economies struggle to … In April 2014, the group abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok, a village in Borno State, northeast Nigeria. 2019 will be a crucial year for sub-Saharan Africa. Despite efforts by various stakeholders to establish a peaceful Africa, armed conflicts continue in parts of the continent. In February 2019, the Government and 14 armed groups signed a peace agreement which has led to fewer direct clashes. This statistic shows the number of conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2005 to 2019, by intensity of conflict. In its quest to “Silence the Guns” in Africa by 2020, which is its theme for the year, the African Union and other partners ought to focus on the main crisis spots currently: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Libya, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions more displaced. Get the latest African news from BBC News in Africa: breaking news, features, analysis and special reports plus audio and video from across the African continent. When the Liberian political entrepreneur Charles Taylor began an insurgency in 1989, he did so with arms and men from nearby Burkina Faso, whose leader Blaise Compaoré was practically a pyromaniac, lighting conflagrations in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast as well. This is a list of conflicts in Africa arranged by country, both on the continent and associated islands, including wars between African nations, civil wars, and wars involving non-African nations that took place within Africa. Now, many African countries are facing a struggle of getting proper democratic governance. About 1,000 people were reported to have been killed in that attack and more than 128,000 displaced since the latest round of the conflict began in April. A better Africa and World. 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