Welcome to the March issue of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project’s (ACLED) Conflict Trends report. Each month, ACLED researchers gather, analyse and publish data on political violence in Africa in realtime. Weekly updates to realtime conflict event data are published on the ACLED website.
This month’s issue focuses on President el-Sisi’s securitisation of Egypt to remove the opportunity for protest, union-led protests in Guinea, a decrease in political violence in Ivory Coast following mutiny in January, increasing xenophobic violence & riots and protests across South Africa, a review of conflict dynamics in South Sudan after violence re-erupted between the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army – In Opposition (SPLA-IO) in July 2016. A Special Report focuses on insecurity in the Liptako-Gourma region.
Elsewhere on the continent, overall violence declined in Ethiopia but battles between Oromia militias and regional Somali police forces escalated, high protest rates continued in Algeria, and violence against civilians remained above the continental six-month average in Burundi, DR-Congo, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan & South Sudan.