Displacement, conflict: Why 2025 may worry Eastern Africa

Others including Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are considered “high” risk areas where violence could blow up any time.

The data published this week is prepared by Prof Clionadh Raleigh, the president and CEO of ACLED, and Katayoun Kishi, the head of data science at ACLED. Both have backgrounds in comparative politics and political violence.

Based on trends since 2020, the global outlook is that violent incidents are likely to continue to rise. Four years ago, for instance, the world witnessed 104,371 incidents of violence. This year, they are nearing 200,000, resulting in at least 233,000 deaths.

In the Horn of Africa, actual data on deaths if often scanty or underreported, but Sudan’s case has reported at least 20,000 deaths from direct violence or absence of humanitarian aid blocked by violence.

The war, pitting the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has resulted in the displacement of at least 11 million people, with about 9.1 million now crammed in crowded camps, according to humanitarian agencies. It is not the only source of displacement.

Read: Death stalks Sudan war victims as world focuses on Gaza

In November, the Internal Displacement in Africa: An overview of trends and developments (2009-2023) report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said Africa was hosting 35 million people who had lost their homes to wars or natural disasters, 80 percent of them were concentrated in only five countries.

In the Horn, over 29 million people are displaced, driven by conflict and climate-related risks, particularly in Sudan and the DRC.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it needed $9.8 billion to address the humanitarian crisis.

Floods and droughts had played a role, but most of those out of their homes were fleeing violence, it said. Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, DRC and Ethiopia had experienced displacements from both violence and disasters, while Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda had seen people flee homes to escape disasters. Experts said some of the causes may be beyond the ability of one country to solve.

“Preventing displacement and helping people rebuild their lives requires not only short-term relief but also long-term investments,” said Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director, commenting on the data.

“To reverse the trends and keep the promise of the Kampala Convention alive for the next 15 years, governments must redouble commitments to addressing displacement’s underlying drivers through peacebuilding, climate action and sustainable development.”

He was referring to the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons, which was passed in Kampala in 2021, the first ever treaty to protect people who flee from homes but remain within their country and hence not under the jurisdiction of the UN Refugee Agency.

In the Horn, however, these displacements have caused overcrowding and limited food security. As it is, there are 64.8 million people considered food insecure as of November, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad).

The figure is lower than 65 million in October, attributed to improved food supplies following high rainfall in some Igad member states.

But the erratic weather means, 35 million people residing in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda are at risk.

“Extreme weather and climate change, now more severe and frequent, are the primary drivers of food insecurity in the region. The agriculture and livestock sector is dominated by rain-fed agriculture and the changing climate disproportionately affects the vulnerable groups,” the report said, but also blamed protracted armed conflicts and violence, political unrest, and insecurity for contributing to hunger.

So how does 2025 look for the region? Experts say there might be more, not less, violent incidents. The ACLED index predicts the overall global posture: “In the beginning of 2025, conflict event rates are expected to grow by 15 percent due to more bombings and battles, and result in approximately 20,000 reported fatalities per month.”

But to be sure, the scale of violence will largely be determined by how specific conflict actors engage in violence across multiple places.

For example, in eastern DRC, it will depend on how the mediation peace talks between Rwanda and DRC go. Or, for Sudan, whether RSF and SAF continue their grandstanding.

Throughout 2025, levels of violence are expected to remain very high relative to the recent historical norm, and an annual increase of 20 percent is likely, ACLED researchers predicted. And it won’t matter if a country is more democratic or closed.

In 2024, for instance, countries that were relatively stable in the past exploded into violence. In Kenya, Gen Z-led protests saw more than 60 dead, according to data compiled by local human rights watchdogs. Most of the deaths were linked to police brutality.

Read: Kenya rocked by protests

That means living in a democracy may not be insurance against conflict, ACLED warned, especially since recent data has shown that conflict is happening in poor neighbourhoods just as much as in partially free countries.

“Most conflict is also now occurring in middle-income countries, and it is growing more strongly in middle- and high-income countries. In short, more development and democracy do not constrain violence. Conflict adapts to political circumstances, changing form and direction according to perpetrators’ agendas,” the ACLED report argued.

However, conflict in the last year has also shown that being in power may not be the same as being in control. In Sahelian countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, juntas have been in power for the last three years.

But some areas still experienced violence perpetrated by extremists. In the region, extremists, external mercenaries, and local arrangements “create a chess board of control and competition,” according to ACLED.

That may signal worse things for countries like Sudan where mercenaries from as far as Colombia have been observed taking part.

This week, Sudan’s warring factions defied the latest push by civilian movements to tame escalating violence with a proposal for a political solution.

And it came after planeloads from the United Arab Emirates were seen landing at an airstrip controlled by RSF, a signal of external players on the way.

Sudan’s violence has defied at least five ceasefire bids from mediators, with latest data showing more than half of hospitals in Khartoum are in ruins.