Riots and protests increased this month in South Africa with Gauteng, Western Cape and Eastern Cape having the highest incidence of demonstrations (see Figure 1). In spite of this general increase, service delivery protests remained low and accounted for only 10% of all demonstrations. This represents a decrease from June (15.6%) and May (15%). Instead…
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Up until the end of the 1990’s, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping (PK) missions did not necessarily specify the protection of civilians (PoC) in their mandate under ‘immediate threats of physical violence’ (Holt et al., 2009). Nor did their mandates clearly permit the “use of force” to fulfil their mission. However, failures of peacekeeping in the…
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Political violence in Nigeria resulted in 980 reported fatalities in July, the highest count since March 2015. This increase in fatalities is largely due to the actions of Boko Haram, which has increased its campaign of violence against civilians. In July, Boko Haram was responsible for 67.3% of all civilian fatalities, the highest proportion since…
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Conflict events in Libya were subject to a slight rise in July, although they steadily fell in the previous two months. Reported fatalities remained relatively constant with just over 250 deaths reported since May 2015. With overlapping conflicts occurring in distinct areas across Libya, this trend reflects stalemates on several battlefronts, including fighting in Benghazi…
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In July, US President Barack Obama completed his first official visit to Kenya, which he described as a country ‘at a crossroads – a moment filled with peril, but also enormous pride’ (Obama, 2015). Security was high on the agenda for discussions, as Obama outlined ‘similar threats of terrorism’ faced by the US. Obama’s visit…
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Despite its relative stability in a precarious regional context, a recurrence of violence in July has raised concerns over Algeria’s unresolved problems. A critical socio-economic situation is putting Algeria’s peripheral regions – where conflict activity has remained high since the beginning of 2015 (see Figure 1) – under constant pressure, exacerbating popular grievances and igniting…
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ACLED has released new real-time local conflict data on the recent unrest in Burundi. This seventh update covering the events from 26 April to 1 August 2015 can be found here. These data mainly draw on crowd-sourced information available from 2015Burundi as well as the conflict data included in ACLED’s weekly real-time conflict data release.…
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ACLED continues its release of real-time local conflict data surrounding the recent unrest in Burundi. The sixth update of the data covering events from 26 April to 25 July 2015 can be found here. It includes conflict events that occurred during the past week when the presidential election was held. As with prior local-level updates,…
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In recent weeks, ACLED has been releasing updated data about recent unrests in Burundi. Drawing mainly on information displayed on 2015Burundi, we have updated the ACLED dataset. Data covering conflict events through 18 July are now available here. New data covering events that occurred during the past week are included, as well as updates to data from…
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Human rights abuses can range from physical violence to denials of peaceful assembly or freedom of expression. Amnesty International (2015) highlights shortcomings in justice and accountability, where crimes such as gender-based violence go unpunished; this impunity can have further negative ramifications within effected societies (ACLED, 18 February 2015). Irresponsible business practices associated with extractive industries…
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