Rabat – Conflicts continue to drive the surge in Africa’s record levels of forcibly displaced people to reach 36 million in 2022, up 12% from past year.
Internal displacement remains the dominant form of forced displacement across the continent with roughly 27 million registered cases. Meanwhile, less than 10% of displaced people have refugee status while around 1% of them are asylum seekers.
According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, eight countries contributed the most to the past year’s increase in cases. The list includes Ethiopia, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and the Central African Republic.
The regional center said that “the dispersed nature of African conflict today underlines the need for greater investments in diplomatic, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding capacity.”
Taking the case of Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict between the country’s government and local forces, the conflict has contributed the most to the surge in this year’s continental forced displacement record with 45% of the concerned population originating from the East African country.
In 2021, 1.7 million Ethiopians left their homes due to the international conflict, pushing the total number of forcibly displaced Ethiopians to 4.7 million and marking a 56% increase compared to 2020.
In March, Ethiopia’s government and the Tigray Defense Forces signed a ceasefire after 16 month of intensive fighting to prevent mass starvation in the country’s northeast regions. The ceasefire has revived hope for potential peace talks and a resolution to “one of Africa’s deadliest wars,” the United States Institute of Peace said.
While Ethiopia contributed the most to the rise in the forcibly displaced African population, South Sudan, another country located in Eastern Africa, currently has the highest percentage of population displaced on the continent (40%). The young country which gained its independence in 2011 has not yet organized its first presidential election.
With 4.5 million people forcibly displaced, the country continues to struggle to seal a lasting peace agreement while competition between rival militias has driven the country towards instability and violence, nonprofit institute the Africa Center analyzed.
Northern neighbor Sudan, has also seen violence escalate over the past year as the conflict in particularly Darfur led to the displacement of 700,000 Sudanese, adding up the total of displaced people to 3.9 million. As the Africa Center pointed out, the Sudanese long-standing conflict reflects the country’s “legacy of conflict, repression, and military rule.”
Sudan’s October 2021 military coup notably ramped up the spread of violence and instability across the country after disrupting its democratic transition in line with the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement between the transitional government and nonstate armed groups.
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The two divided nations of Sudan and South Sudan struggle to restore peace related to internal instability, similar to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has the largest forcibly displaced population in Africa estimated at 6.3 million.
Last year, 155,849 Congolese were displaced due to lingering armed violence that dates back to the end of the second Congo War in 2003. Fragile political systems, regional rivalries, Illicit mining, and a proxy war between Uganda and Rwanda continue to weaken the land of precious resources; diamonds, gold, copper, and cobalt.
The Central African Republic (CAR), for its part, has the second highest level of forced displacement in Africa behind South Sudan with one-third of its population displaced (1.3 million).
Despite the signing of the 2019 peace agreement between the CAR government and 14 rebel groups, the continuous fighting which occurred last year had pushed 100,000 people to leave their homes. The presence of Russian mercenaries, Wagner group, is also expected to aggravate the country’s instability and deteriorate human rights situation, according to some experts.
In addition to internal rivalries and foreign interventions, Islamist violence has driven regional instability in Burkina Faso and Mozambique in 2021, leading to the displacement of 500,000 Burkinabe and 116,000 Mozambicans.
With Africa struggling with internal conflicts fueled by foreign intervention and violent Islamist movements as well as surge in food and energy prices, the continent is in need for peace building efforts “at the subnational level to fashion the local solutions required,” the Africa Center recommended.
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