Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research

While Burkina Faso has not in more recent times witnessed classic civil wars like other West African states, there are many similar traits between the current situation and a civil war with several groups including the government fighting internally.

Violence has continued in the country despite crackdowns from government forces, and due to Chad’s strategic position in the region there are potential spill-over effects following this change in the degree of internal stability in Chad which will affect the region as a whole.

Stereotypes are often deeply rooted in our understandings of the world and intrinsically also how we engage in it. When it comes to the effects that the usage of women as suicide bombers have on the enemies and victims of the attacks, these are both cognitive and practical in terms of identifying the threat.

Local peace negotiations such as the ones between Fulani and Dogon can contribute to peace building plans as they often provide a comprehensive insight into the roots of the problems.

Located in West Africa, Guinea-Bissau, with its 1.8 million people, constitutes what has for many years been a fragile state located in between Senegal and Guinea. Beside the overshadowing problem of not being able to sustain a stable governing system, the country is struggling with networks of drug trafficking – a problem that is not new, but has proven hard to combat in the given security context.

While there is no doubt that both national and international anti-piracy laws will lead to better conditions for the fight against piracy, it is evidently important to be aware of the opportunities that national laws have where international law cannot deliver.

Developing peacefully compared to some of its African neighbors in the 1990s, Mozambique was considered by many to be a bastion of continental progress. However, November 2020 witnessed a horrific attack which led to the beheading of over 50 people by Islamist militants. This assault was the most serious incident yet in a Jihadist campaign that has been waged in the north of the country over the last three years.

The legal debate around the position of civilians in the combatant landscape can both have consequences for the rights of the individuals in question, and also for the legitimacy of the intervention by Western forces in the Sahel.

The 1994 Rwandan genocide is the most famous example of the power of language. This linguistic parallel between Cameroon and Rwanda is worrying, considering their similar history of discrimination patterns, human rights abuses and political exclusion of minority groups.