Conflicts that rocked the world
Plight of Ukraine & the risk of WW III
34 days and counting…
President Vladimir Putin of Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on February 24. More than one month after the war, the war has reduced the cities to rubble and forced millions to flee their homes. The largest military conflict in Europe since World War II, it has also upset the international security order and sent dangerous ripples through the global economy
Decoding the conflict
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has a long history. However, tensions escalated in 2021 when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged US President Joe Biden to let Ukraine join NATO. Ukraine is a democratic country of 44 million people, with over 1,000 years of history. Ukraine’s lurch away from Russian influence felt like the final death knell for Russian power in Eastern Europe. The US and Nato believe that countries should be free to join any alliance
Can the past be revived?
The war seems to be Putin’s desperate design to somehow revive Soviet glory. In 2008, Putin publicly said he would reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union if he had a chance to alter modern Russian history. Russia has asked the US and Nato to roll back their expansion in eastern Europe, including Ukraine, and other former Soviet states from the Baltic to Central Asia
CASUALTIES
At least 1,035 people have been killed and 1,650 have been wounded in one month of fighting in Ukraine, according to the UN human rights office
Afghanistan trials, tribulations & tragedy
On August 15, last year, the Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul. By the evening, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his vice president had fled the country, while the rest of the Afghanistan made desperate calls for help. The militant group had seized the presidential palace. US defense officials reportedly expected Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to fall in 90 days. It took less than 10 days. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the insurgents from power, but they never left. After they blitzed across the country last year, the Western-backed government that has run the country for 20 years collasped, leaving Afghans fearing for the future. The core of the success of the new Taliban has been the ability to combine diplomacy with their military prowess
Back to the regime of terror
People’s worst fears about Taliban reimposing the harsh Islamic law are coming true. The Taliban have shut women out of the workforce and kept girls from going to school. Recently, the insurgents banned the girls from secondary education by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys. Though Taliban have sought to present themselves as a moderate force, there is no development in the sight. Infact, they recently banned women in Afghanistan from flying anywhere in the world without male chaperone.
20 years of conflict
The American forces entered Afghanistan in 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. From 2002 to 2008, the American forces remained in the country and took on the nation-building tasks by providing financial aid, training Afghan forces against the insurgents. However, Afghanistan returned to Taliban rule last year, as the US forces started withdrawing from the country. Former president Ashraf Ghani also left Kabul abruptly. According to the Costs of War Project, the 20-year-old conflict has killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan
Syrian war A conflict that lasted for 11 years
How it started
Even before the conflict began, many Syrians were complaining about high unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father, Hafez, after he died in 2000. In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by uprisings in neighbouring countries against repressive rulers. When the Syrian government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president’s resignation erupted nationwide. The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. Mr Assad vowed to crush what he called “foreign-backed terrorism”.The violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war. It spread violence into neighboring Iraq and provided a fertile breeding ground for militant groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
People killed so far
The United Nations has verified that at least 350,209 civilians and combatants were killed between March 2011 and March 2021, but it has warned that it is an ‘undercount of the actual number’.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said 26,727 victims were women and 27,126 were children.
Who is in control of city now
The government has regained control of Syria’s biggest cities, but large parts of the country are still held by rebels, jihadists and the Kurdish-led SDF. There have been no shifts in the front lines for two years. The last remaining opposition stronghold is in the north-western province of Idlib and adjoining parts of northern Hama and western Aleppo provinces.
Boko Haram ‘ Western education is a sin’
A few years back, as many as 330 students were kidnapped by some extremists from a government boys’ school in Nigeria’s northern village of Kankara. Nigeria’s Boko Haram jihadist rebels claimed responsibility for the abduction of the students from the School. The group’s name means ‘Western education is forbidden’ in the Hausa language spoken across northern Nigeria. Its original members were followers of militant preacher Mohammed Yusuf who was based in the northeastern state of Borno
Casualties so far
States in the North-East Nigeria register the highest number of deaths. Borno is by far the most threated state. Boko Haram has caused over 34 thousand deaths in this area
KIDNAPPING
- Boko Haram kidnapped more than 270 girls from a school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014, an attack that sparked outrage and gave rise to a global #BringBackOurGirls campaign
- About half the girls have since been found or freed but many never returned home and some are thought to have died in captivity
- Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of other people to raise ransom money and recruits, and provide wives for its fighters, regional security experts say
Deadly Nigerian war
April 2014 In Chibok,more than 270 schoolgirls were taken from their school in northeastern Borno State. About 100 of the girls are still missing. February 2014 59 boys were killed when Boko Haram attacked the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State.
Yemen crisis A tragedy without justice
How it started
The conflict has its roots in the failure of a political process supposed to bring stability to Yemen following an uprising in 2011 that forced its long-time authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to hand over power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi
Who is fighting whom
There are Houthi rebels on the one side. They are known as Ansar Allah and champion Yemen’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority. On the other side is the Yemeni government backed by the Saudi-led military coalition. The coalition says the rebels are Iran’s proxies and wants to reverse what it says is growing Iranian influence in the region
Current situation
January 2022 saw the highest toll (more than 650 civilians killed or wounded) in Yemen in at least three years. More than 23,000 civilians have been displaced since the beginning of 2022 itself
Israel-Palestine conflict — 100 years of history
How it all started: The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict began with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. This conflict came from the intercommunal violence in Mandatory Palestine between Israelis and Arabs from 1920 and erupted into full-scale hostilities in the 1947–48 civil war
What’s happening now: Tensions are often high between Israel and Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza is ruled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has fought Israel many times. Israel and Egypt tightly control Gaza’s borders to stop weapons getting to Hamas. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank say they are suffering because of Israeli actions and restrictions
People killed so far: The Israel-Palestine conflict has claimed 14,000 lives since 1987 according to a data collected from December 1987 to May 17
