2021 saw a mix of political instability and civil war in Africa; Ethiopian government forces and the rebel Tigray Defense Forces fighting in Tigray and Amhara regions, coups in Sudan and Mali and several raging insurgencies in Mozambique, Nigeria, DR Congo just to name a few.
As you may also be aware there has been a civil war has been raging in Cameroon for some time now. According to a 2021 analysis by the UN humanitarian arm, OCHA , over 700,000 children were impacted by school closures due to often brutal violence in Cameroon.
This war pitting anglophone and francophone speaking citizens has been going on for decades with separatists in Anglophone regions demanding for secession and governing of their own state, Ambazonia.
In 2016, peaceful protests led by lawyers, teachers and other groups who were demanding for linguistic reforms escalated into a war of secession that has killed thousands of people rendering over a million homeless. Up to 2021 there has been increased tension with random explosion experienced across the war tone country.
Elsewhere, just as Ivory Coast was trying to put an end to the second civil war that started in 2011, the country find itself in another post-election violence that resulted to the death of dozens of citizens. Sudan on the other hand has been experiencing a new wave of violence in West Darfur that has killed hundreds of civilians. The country also experienced a military coup In October which was led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. This led to massive pro-democracy protests across the country as a result dozens got killed by security forces clamping down on protestors and hundreds injured.
Further in Guinea, there was another coup by the armed forces. President Alpha Conde was toppled and replaced with coup leader Mamady Doumbouya, a member of the Guinean Special Forces Group and a former French Legionnaire.
In Ethiopia, PM Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) engaged in a fierce fighting over the Tigray region. The unrest led to the killings of thousands within the region with around 2.2 million people being displaced.
Other countries like Somalia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda and the Sahel region experienced terrorism that claimed the lives of innocent Africans.
With all the above cases coupled with environmental issues, Covid 19 pandemic that stalled the entire planet and the unprecedent unemployment rate, it’s evident that the continent has had too much to grapple with throughout 2021.
2022 is another year to find a solution to the never end of crisis that bedevil the continent.