Africa now accounts for around 40 percent of all armed conflicts worldwide, with more than 50 active clashes across the continent, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters, ICRC Vice-President Gilles Carbonnier said that the number of conflicts in Africa has risen by about 45 percent since 2020. “We now have more than 50 active armed conflict situations in Africa,” he said, adding that the humanitarian consequences “are truly dramatic.”
The continent of Africa, which is home to about 1.4 billion people, faces growing instability despite its vast natural wealth and young population. According to Carbonnier, some 35 million people have been displaced by violence in African countries, representing almost half of the world’s displaced population.
The ICRC has warned that the surge in conflicts coincides with a sharp decline in humanitarian funding, following significant aid cuts by the United States and several Western nations.
“This forces us to make very painful choices, where we must reduce, or even cease, some of our operations to prioritise others,” Carbonnier said.
In July, an international study found that the withdrawal of US aid could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, a third of them children.
The ICRC highlighted Sudan as the continent’s most alarming crisis. Civil war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, which began in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million people. The United Nations has described it as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”
“We have a health system that is largely destroyed,” Carbonnier said, expressing concern about outbreaks of cholera, malaria, and dengue fever.
He also condemned renewed violence in Somalia, where government forces continue to battle the militant Al-Shabaab group, and in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting has intensified since January after the M23 rebel group, backed by Rwanda, seized the key cities of Goma and Bukavu.