In February, Guinea witnessed the highest levels of political violence and protest since the presidential elections in October 2015 (see Figure 1). Over the past month, Guinea suffered a nationwide strike which spiralled into violence leaving eight people dead, infrastructure destroyed and left the capital city, Conakry, paralysed. The strike was incited by Guinea’s main…
Guinea witnessed a dramatic spike in political unrest in October with levels of political violence surpassing those seen during the depth of the Ebola crisis. The primary cause of this instability is the presidential election, which took place on 11 October, which pitted incumbent Alpha Conde with long-time challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo. Conde and his…
The Fragile States Index (FSI), produced by The Fund for Peace, highlights pressures faced by states, identifying “when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure”, with the intent of shaping assessments of political risk by researchers and policymakers (Messner et al., 2015). The FSI is calculated for countries worldwide using an…
Ebola spread to Senegal last week, now the fifth country affected in the West Africa Ebola outbreak, which also includes Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone (Reuters, 30 August 2014). At the same time, a record number of Ebola-related protests and riots occurred as residents reacted to ad-hoc government plans to deal with the unprecedented…