As the war in Ukraine drags on, we continue to witness abuses against civilians and entire cities being razed to the ground. Elsewhere too, civilians are being slaughtered and starved with complete impunity such as in northern Ethiopia,or killed during security operations in Mali.Today, one-quarter of the world’s population lives in a conflict zone as…
By Beatrice Godefroy and Suleiman Mamutov The lives of millions of civilians in Ukraine hang in the balance. The renewed threat of a war between Russia and Ukraine doesn’t bode well for millions of Ukrainians living along the contact line as heavy shelling has increased in recent days. Residential buildings, including a kindergarten and a…
By John Ramming Chappell and Ari Tolany Recent months have seen a flood of revelations concerning civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations. The last U.S. airstrike of the war in Afghanistan, which killed ten civilians including an aid worker and seven children, was soon followed by news of U.S. operations in Syria targeting and endangering civilians. Reporting from The…
By Daniel Levine-Spound On November 30, 2021, the Congolese army (FARDC) and the Ugandan military (UPDF) launched joint operations in the Beni territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group that originated in Uganda but has operated in eastern Congo since the mid-nineties and is responsible for…
By Lauren Spink The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan — known by its acronym UNMISS — has perhaps been most known for providing security to civilians inside protection of civilians (POC) sites in and around its bases. In October 2020, UNMISS began the process of re-designating the POC sites into camps for internally…
By Daniel Levine-Spound and Samuli Harju The UN Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of the world body’s peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo during discussions later this month in New York. But as the mission – known by its French acronym MONUSCO – makes plans to draw down and eventually…
By Viola Giuliano and Josh Jorgensen The United Nations Security Council in the coming weeks will be negotiating a new mandate for the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) – known by its acronym MINUSCA. Since the Security Council adopted the Mission’s current mandate last November, a new armed rebellion has plunged the country into…
By Annie Shiel, Jordan Street, and Abigail Watson As attention across the world remained fixed on the Afghanistan withdrawal and the runup to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Biden administration quietly delivered one of the first public insights into its developing counterterrorism policy. In a speech at the Atlantic Council on Sept.…
By Abigail Watson, Beatrice Godefroy, Rocco Blume, Camilla Molyneux, Jamie Gaskarth, Lucia Withers, and Murray Jones With the UK’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy signalling an increased focus on building the capacity of foreign security forces, through the generation of a new Ranger Regiment, the UK has an opportunity to take stock of…