The Burundian flag flies at the head of a convoy of buses moving refugees back home from Tanzania in 2019.
Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP via Getty Images
Tanzania’s refugee policy in the 1990s is a good example of how geopolitics affects ordinary refugees.
Refugees who crossed from Sudan to Ethiopia wait in line to register at the International Organization for Migration at Metema on May 4, 2023.
Photo by AMANUEL SILESHI/AFP via Getty Images
The number of refugees leaving Sudan is particularly high because Sudan was itself host to a million refugees.
Civilians protest in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, in December 2022.
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Sudan’s civilian protesters have gained a form of political power that traditional elites have struggled to attain.
A Sudanese military officer watches the evacuation operation at Port Sudan, May 2 2023.
AP Photo/Amr Nabil
Sudan was formed by conquest, and its politics and, increasingly, its wealth have been controlled by the military ever since.
People who have been evacuated from Sudan arrive in Greece.
Marios Lolos/Xinhua//Alamy
Evacuations offer some hope, but only for those that qualify for them.
Jordanians being evacuated from Sudan amid fighting between two factions.
AP Photo/Raad Adayleh
Sudan’s location and natural resources have attracted international partners keen to benefit either geopolitically or economically.
Devastation: much of central Khartoum has been destroyed in heavy fighting.
EPA-EFE/Indonesian Embassy KBRI Khartoum
The role of the Wagner Group in the Sudan crisis is not yet clear, but its mercenaries are reported to be involved in a number of African countries.
Sudanese in Khartoum protest the 2021 military coup that blocked a transition to civilian rule.
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Omar al-Bashir fell in 2019, but his military successors have preserved much of the authoritarian infrastructure of his regime.
Africa is plagued by paramilitary militias and foreign mercenary groups.
Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo
Armed group, mercenaries, mining, power struggles. It’s a familiar story in Africa, sadly.
The Rapid Support Forces emerged from the Janjaweed militia known for their violent tactics.
Scott Barbour /GettyImages
The Rapid Support Forces were created by former president Omar al Bashir to protect his regime from rebels - but they soon became a threat to both him and the future government.
Marwan Ali/AP
Sudan’s neighbours are urging restraint, favouring more business, less war. Both generals are aware the longer the situation goes on, the more unsustainable it will become.
Sudan army soldiers are fighting a rival paramilitary group.
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Violence in Sudan threatens to throw the troubled nation into chaos. A scholar of the region explains what is going on and what’s at stake.
Giordano Cipriani/Getty Images
Aquifers are highly prevalent across Africa – but they’re not always going to be usable.
Kenyan fishermen demand a say in the country’s border conflict with Somalia.
Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images
The joint border commission between Kenya and South Sudan is a step in the right direction.
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South Sudan’s diplomatic support around energy and water is much sought after in Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan.
A young boy displaced by the civil war in South Sudan irons his shirt before school.
Paul Jeffery/Alamy
Pope Francis will be part of a peace mission to South Sudan, where thousands have been killed in ongoing violence.
Internally displaced people from the Dinka ethnic group at the Minkamman camp in South Sudan in 2014.
EFE-EPA/Jim Lopez
In 2018, Africa accounted for 70% of the world’s people displaced by armed conflict and human rights abuses.
A woman at a camp for those displaced by drought in Baidoa, Somalia, in September 2022.
Ed Ram/Getty Images
States with more capacity, more political inclusion and that make good use of foreign aid tend to see better outcomes.
The sluice gates open at the Owen Falls dam across the White Nile in Uganda on 14 October 1962.
McCabe/Express/Hulton Archive via Getty Images
The mega dam in Jinja was meant to give Uganda energy independence, but this was constrained by Britain’s agricultural interests in Egypt.
Ton Koene/ Alamy
One woman has used her academic research and personal experience to explore the idea of ‘acceptable’ and ‘undeserving’ refugees.