International Crisis Group
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CrisisWatch - Tracking Conflict Worldwide
Global Overview
October saw Venezuela’s tense political standoff at new heights amid economic stress and popular unrest, and Haiti’s weak political and security equilibrium struck by a major natural disaster and humanitarian crisis. In Africa, violence worsened in the Central African Republic (CAR), north-eastern Kenya, Mozambique and western Niger, while in Ethiopia the government hardened its response to continued protests. In Myanmar, unprecedented attacks on police in the north triggered deadly clashes and displacement threatening to exacerbate intercommunal tensions across the country, while Russia’s North Caucasus saw an increase in conflict-related casualties, detentions and counter-terrorism operations. In the Middle East, the election of Michel Aoun as president of Lebanon signals a long-awaited breakthrough ending two years of political deadlock.
SOURCE: Crisis Group
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CrisisWatch 
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A Wake-up Call for Eritrea and Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s military probably knows that delivering a decisive blow against Eritrea may fatally damage the regime and risk (another) complicated civil war on its doorstep.
-Crisis Group’s Cedric Barnes in latest commentary, A Wake-up Call for Eritrea and Ethiopia
Source: Crisis Group
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Ethiopia: Governing the Faithful
Ethiopia provides a significant example of the struggle governments are undertaking to find and implement effective policy responses to faith-based violent extremism and sectarian conflict. Given both demographic shifts and greater religious freedoms, the management of religious conflict and practice has of necessity been a complex and sometimes fraught task.
FULL REPORT (Via Crisis Group)
Photo: REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri
SOURCE: Crisis Group
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East Africa’s Sufi Path to Countering Violent Extremism
Many paths have been tried to counter the appeal of violent religious extremism in East Africa. In the Muslim community, traditional Sufism is being increasingly viewed as an important new way. But it should be followed with caution, since official embrace of just one religious custom can never be the only road.
A new engagement emerged from a meeting of Sufi clerics and activists from East and Central Africa who organised a three-day conference in Mackinnon, a small trading centre on the Mombasa-Nairobi Highway in late August to discuss ways of countering violent extremism (known as CVE). Some 300 delegates representing Sufi orders (tariqas) from Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and DR Congo attended the meeting dubbed “The International Sufi Conference for East Africa”.
FULL BLOG POST (Via Crisis Group)
Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Source: Crisis Group
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For more than eighteen months, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional body mediating peace negotiations to end South Sudan’s civil war, has struggled to secure a deal in the face of deep regional divisions and the parties’ truculence. In this video, Crisis Group’s South Sudan Analyst Casie Copeland explains how to overcome these challenges.
FULL INTERVIEW (via Crisis Group)
Source: Crisis Group
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Hunger amid tragedy for South Sudan refugees | Hannah McNeish and Peter Nicholls
Lietchor, Ethiopia - The water at the Lietchor refugee camp has gone from waist to knee high, but it was still deep enough last month for a five-year-old to drown as his mother went to collect her weekly grain rations.
“I had a boy and he drowned and I no longer have him,” Nyabong Yual told Al Jazeera, her shaking hands folding and unfolding as she spoke.
This camp of gnarled plastic-sheeted tents - on the border of South Sudan and Ethiopia - is home to a quarter of the 200,000 people who have fled an 11-month-long and increasingly brutal civil war.
But the hunger and tragedy that stalked them on their long journey from ransacked, razed and blood-soaked villages in South Sudan has followed them here.
“I tried so much to make him alive again. I took him to the clinic but there was nothing anyone could do,” said Yual, her seven-year-old daughter Nyakume pulling desperately at her skirt. The little girl with the saddest gaze stood helpless watching her brother Nyanyema flail then float just metres from home.
She hasn’t spoken of him since his body was laid out for camp residents to cry over as they held their children a little closer.
FULL ARTICLE (Al Jazeera)
Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia/2014/Ayene/flickr
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Ethiopia: Thousands protest political repression | Miami Herald
By Kirubel Tadesse
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Thousands of Ethiopian demonstrators took to the streets of the capital Sunday demanding the immediate release of jailed journalists and activists in a rare show of public opposition to the ruling party which maintains strict control over the East African nation.
Protesters marched along major streets in the capital, Addis Ababa, shouting “We need freedom,” and “We need justice.” The peaceful rally was the first major demonstration since 2005 post-election unrest when security forces killed hundreds of protesters.
FULL ARTICLE (AP via Miami Herald)
Photo: Unrest in Addis Ababa in June 2005.
Credit: Andrew Heavens/Flickr
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“Concerned Western partners, neighbours and governments with special relations with Asmara could play a vital role in preventing a major humanitarian crisis or even the state’s collapse.” — from Crisis Group’s recent report, Eritrea: Scenarios for Future Transition -
“To reduce the risk of instability in Eritrea and its neighbourhood, a broad coalition of international actors should take precautionary moves, including immediate and decisive efforts to promote dialogue on avoidance of internal power struggles and mediation of a peaceful transition.” — from Crisis Group’s recent report, Eritrea: Scenarios for Future Transition