With the indefinite presence of COVID-19, the relevance of this piece is that it offers strategies that may assist in minimising the impact of intrastate armed conflict against the backdrop of this new reality. In what follows, I examine the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on intrastate armed conflicts in Africa, generally unpacking this category of conflict on the continent before exploring how the pandemic may have operated as its trigger or how it may have exacerbated existing conflict. Not surprisingly, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres made calls for a global ceasefire in recognition of how COVID-19 could further undermine international peace and security.

Often, intrastate conflicts are multifaceted, falling under the classification of ‘armed’ where there is resort to the use of armed force resulting in at least 25 battle-related deaths.Īccording to the Alert 2021! Report on conflicts, human rights and peacebuilding, internal conflict formed 82% of all global strife, with the African continent accounting for 44% of total global conflict in 2020. Intrastate conflicts are defined as ‘violence between or among one or more advantaged or disadvantaged minority or majority groups, and one or more of these groups and the political/juridical state, to gain either a greater share of limited resources or control or autonomy or both over the territorial state’.

Armed conflicts in africa