A new road

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Sahel states: here is the geography of the main African crises

Having returned to the center of world interest, Africa with its enormous riches, continuously expanding demographics - it is the youngest place on the planet - and its thousand contradictions has entered a very important year for several reasons.

First of all, it will be necessary to understand whether new conflicts will break out and whether the ongoing ones, regularly forgotten, will cease. Special observers are the Red Sea area to the east and the Horn of Africa (including Sudan) where Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed claims his country's natural right to regain an outlet to the Red Sea, causing tensions with Eritrea to skyrocket , Djibouti and Somalia. In fact, Abiy has made an agreement with the small autonomous and independent region of Somaliland, which for 30 years has behaved like a nation detached from Somalia with its own currency, government and police force without having been recognized by the UN, the African Union and from other nations. Ethiopia has essentially leased the port of Berbera and 30 km of coastline for half a century in exchange for recognition of Somaliland's independence and 20% of the shares of the national airline Ethiopian Airlines.

Mogadishu, which has never recognized the independence of the north of the country, considers the pact an attack on its territorial integrity and has said it is ready to respond with weapons, cashing in on international solidarity. Another big unknown is knowing whether or not the conflict in Sudan will end where, after nine months, there are seven and a half million refugees and internally displaced persons and the humanitarian situation is becoming catastrophic. The army and paramilitaries are fighting for control of a state that has an outlet on the Red Sea and is rich in gold mines in the Darfur region, where the Russian mercenaries of the former Wagner extract the gold that finances Putin's conflict in Ukraine . The model appears to be that of Tigray in northern Ethiopia where the conflict which lasted from November 2020 to 2022 had devastating effects: at least one million deaths between victims of the conflict and victims of the famine caused by the siege and the systematic destruction of hospitals and crops and where drones supplied by Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were used, with lethal effects on the civilian population.

On the opposite side, the unknown concerns first of all the Democratic Republic of Congo which has seven million internally displaced people due to the many conflicts that are inflaming especially the eastern part of the country for the control of minerals and rare earths to be then resold to foreign powers such as China , Russia and the USA. In Africa, 19 African states will vote in 2024. Some like South Africa and the block of neighboring states are moving towards a liberal democracy, but in the French-speaking countries of the Sahel where there have been anti-EU coups in the last three years, they will vote for the transition to democracy . In the meantime, the French have abandoned Niger and Mali, creating a military vacuum that the Russians and Americans would like to fill with mercenaries for predatory purposes. This can trigger new conflicts: from popular participation in elections or from possible protests against fraud we will know what a significant portion of the African people think of Europe.

If he prefers Russia on a military level and China on an economic level as a partner to the EU and Washington. Brussels can only commit - as far as possible - to ending conflicts and helping the development of civil society. But everything else belongs to the necessary and tormented path of Africa which is trying to turn the page, choosing a new identity and the path to follow.

Paolo Lambruschi

NP Febbraio 2023