In this episode of the ‘Breaking Cycles of Conflict’ mini-series, Dr Gina Vale talks about her research into the role of women in IS. She explains how some moved from domestic roles to frontline combat, why the notion of ‘jihadi brides’ can be reductive, and the challenges and risks of reintegrating IS-affiliated women into society.
Trauma interventions in fragile areas can help to break cycles of conflict, because we know that exposure to violence causes trauma, but that trauma can also cause violence. But these interventions are often delivered for only a narrow group of people deemed to be ‘worthy’ of them. In reality, the distinction between victim and perpetrator in conflict-affected populations isn’t quite so clear cut.
In this episode of the ‘Breaking Cycles of Conflict’ mini-series, Dr Gina Vale interviews Dr Alison Brettle about her research into trauma interventions. Dr Brettle explains what programmes work best in fragile and conflict-affected areas and why the international donor and policy communities need to broaden their conceptualisation of who should be allowed to participate in interventions.
The Libyan city of Kufra is an important trade hub for goods crossing its borders with Sudan and Chad. Since 2011, human smuggling has come to play a complex role in Kufra’s economic development and overall stability, providing counter-intuitive findings for international policymakers.
Communal disputes
Kufra’s population comprises two main groups: Arabs and Tebus. The Arab community in Kufra numbers around 55,000 people – of which approximately 42,000 are from the Zway community, and 5,000 from non-Zway tribes – while the indigenous Tebu community consists of around 8,000 people.
Longstanding rifts exist both between and within these communities. While Kufra’s communities were united in their support of the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, they have not agreed on what should come next. The Tebu have sought greater representation in local government while the Zway have sought to maintain sole control of the local governance system.
The divisions within the city are literal as well as figurative. Residential areas are split between Tebu and Zway, and Zway residential areas are also divided by familial branches. While the Gaddafi regime had developed several mixed residential areas and sought integration of the communities in the city’s schools, divisions hardened following the revolution.
In 2014, in response to the Tebu community’s request for greater political representation, Libya’s eastern-based interim government approved the establishment of a separate Tebu local governance authority in Kufra and Rebiana oasis. The Zway community’s response to this perceived threat contributed to a significant outbreak of violence in which over 100 people are believed to have been killed and hundreds more were displaced.
The Zway’s military victory gave them control over the local security sector. The city’s security directorate, akin to police, and the dominant armed faction, Subul al-Salam – affiliated to the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) of Khalifa Haftar – became armed factions of the Zway community, excluding Kufra’s Tebu minority. The Tebu also failed to achieve their political objectives as their parallel local council was transformed into a committee under the authority of the Zway-run Kufra municipal council in 2017.
The development of cross-border trade
From the 1960s to the 1980s, over 50 major agricultural projects were completed in Kufra, firmly establishing agriculture as a critical element of the local economy. However, the impact of war with nearby Chad (1978-87) saw Kufra become a militarized area. In addition, international sanctions applied following the Lockerbie disaster meant Kufra’s agricultural projects could not secure the necessary replacement parts and many fell into disrepair.
People instead turned to cross-border smuggling as a quick source of income. Historically, Kufra had been a vital waypoint for trade caravans from African Wadai and Kanem-Bornu kingdoms to Egypt. Electronics smuggling and cattle imports during the Gaddafi era meant Kufra residents enjoyed relative economic well-being. These semi-licit activities were encouraged by the customs authority, whose employees came from big cities such as Tripoli and Misrata to compete for work at the lucrative Oweynat desert border crossing.
Human smuggling and trafficking: from conflict to cooperation
From 2012 to 2015, Kufra’s Zway and Tebu communities fiercely competed for control of border crossings and desert routes. In 2012, in an effort to gain exclusive control of the local cross-border economy, the Zway constructed large sand trenches around Kufra to curb Tebu-run cross-border trade, making it impossible to enter and exit Kufra without crossing through fixed checkpoints.
This effective siege of Tebu trade fuelled armed conflict between Tebu and Zway forces and inhibited the development of Kufra’s human trafficking and smuggling sector. However, following the consolidation of Zway control over Kufra in 2015, economic cooperation with the Tebu continued out of necessity.
While the Zway-dominated Subul al-Salam could monopolize the desert routes from Kufra to the Sudanese border, the route to northeast Libya remained difficult to use as a result of the security situation in the northwest. This meant that the Zway would cut deals with the Tebu to secure the movement of irregular migrants east through the Tebu-dominated Rebiana oasis and onward via the Fezzan region. By early 2017, the human smuggling and trafficking networks were operating freely via these routes.
Despite ongoing tensions, the mutually beneficial involvement in human smuggling and trafficking actually appears to have served as a source of stability among rival factions in Kufra.
Municipal funding underwritten by the smuggling sector
The income generated from the smuggling sector has led to reported improvements in the quality of life of Kufra’s residents. This is in part due to the 2017 establishment of the Kufra Construction Fund (KCF), set up by the Zway-controlled municipal council to provide a framework for Subul al-Salam’s expansive engagement in the economy. Negotiated by local Zway elites, the KCF is effectively a deal to split the revenues from the taxation of cross-border trade between Subul al-Salam and the local municipal council. In the face of limited and intermittent support from national government, this is an example of a very different form of decentralization to that envisaged by Western donors.
The KCF provides no effective legal cover in Libyan law. Municipal councils do not have powers to impose movement taxes and, in any case, the flows largely consist of illicit goods. Rather, this is a local solution to mitigate the lack of resources provided by central government.
Stability steeped in violence
The business of human smuggling and trafficking inflict serious harm on the migrants that cross the Kufra region; its detention centre is infamous and human rights abuses are widespread. But for the local population, the sector is also raising living standards and establishing a largely functional – albeit entirely illegal – system of municipal development.
Although the dispute between the Zway and Tebu communities over ancestral ownership of the region remains unresolved, business ties in the human smuggling sector appear to offer the clearest functioning linkages between them.
These developments show that stability – or simply the absence of fighting – does not necessarily mean the absence of conflict. In fact, the sort of stability seen in Kufra is steeped in violence, both structural with respect to the exclusion of the Tebu minority and direct with respect to the violence inflicted on non-Libyan migrants.
Stability of a less violent nature would require a set of economic alternatives to engagement in illicit trade and a social reconciliation that seem more distant now than at any point since 2011. The experience of Kufra also raises difficult questions for policymakers over what sorts of interventions to support in places that have come to thrive on cross-border illicit trade.
In the second instalment of this mini-series, we join Dr Craig Larkin and Dr Rajan Basra fresh off the plane from Beirut to talk about their fieldwork out in Lebanon interviewing ex-Islamist prisoners and their families. Interviewed by Dr Nafees Hamid, the pair discuss how historic conflicts, social inequalities, and personal traumas can all lead prisoners to pursue a path towards, or away from, extremism.
What drives one person to violence and another to peace? How does experience of trauma lead to radicalisation? Are there interventions that can help deflect people from trajectories of extremism? These are some of the questions that researchers in the XCEPT King’s College London team are trying to answer.
This research aims to understand the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour, and to propose interventions and policies that can bring about peace. In the first episode of this mini-series, Dr Nafees Hamid and Dr Fiona McEwen introduce the work being done as part of the XCEPT programme at King’s College London and give us a glimpse of what’s to come.
Peripheral Vision: Views from the Borderlands is the program’s bi-annual news bulletin, exploring new and emerging issues across our focus regions.
Global economic pressures from the Covid-19 pandemic to Russia’s war in Ukraine have led to steep inflation and shortages of key commodities, including food and fuel. This instability has complicated effects on dynamics in conflict-affected border areas, many of which operate outside of centralized systems and may face particular vulnerabilities, forcing governments and communities to consider new coping strategies.
In this first audio version of the bulletin, we look at examples from Myanmar, Tunisia, and Ethiopia through a series of short interviews with three local experts.
Disclaimer: The opinions, findings, and conclusions stated herein are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of XCEPT.
XCEPT is proud to present stand-out research published by the XCEPT consortium during 2022. Below you can find highlights from our research on conflict-affected borderlands, how conflicts connect across borders, conflict dynamics, the drivers of violent and peaceful behaviour, and the use of innovative methodologies in conflict settings.
XCEPT Research on Borderlands
RESEARCH REPORT, THE ASIA FOUNDATION, RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE, CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER
Border Towns, Markets and Conflict
This report aims to amplify a grounded understanding of the everyday reality of communities in fragile border areas and how conflict shapes their lives. Read more
RESEARCH REPORT, RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE
Fixing the Price: The Politics of the Khat Trade Between Ethiopia and Somaliland
Ethiopian authorities doubled the price of khat for exports to Somaliland and Djibouti in April 2022. Following much controversy, the decision was reversed a few months later. What was behind this trade price ‘fix’, and why does it matter? Read more
RESEARCH REPORT, RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE
War, Migration, and Work: Agricultural Labour and Cross-border Migration from Northern Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan
This study examines the history of labour migration and labour relations in present-day South Sudan’s Bahr el-Ghazal borderlands with Darfur and Kordofan (regions of present-day Sudan). Read more
RESEARCH REPORT, RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE
Purchasing Insecurity: The African Red Sea Region and the Global Food Trade
Focusing on the late 19th and 20th centuries, this report examines the historical origins of the Red Sea region’s structural food insecurity, linking the current crisis to the rinderpest epizootic (1887 – 1889), destabilisation of the rural economy, and accelerating process of urbanisation that transformed the African Red Sea Region. Read more
BLOG, TRIAS CONSULT
Broken Borderlands: How Conflict is Changing Communities on the Edge of Nations Communities living on either side of national borders often forge deep cultural and economic ties but suffer acutely when countries clash. Borders hardened by continued conflict risk destroying community relations that once thrived despite differences. Read more
BLOG, XCEPT
Frontier Farming: Along the War-Torn Ethiopia-Sudan Border, Agriculture, Politics, and Conflict are Increasingly Entwined
The capture of fertile agricultural land in Western Tigray and the eastern Sudanese Al Fashaga region sheds light on how profits from cash crops help feed politics and conflict. Read more
RESEARCH REPORT, CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER
Border Nation: The Reshaping of the Syrian-Turkish Borderlands
After a decade of civil war, Syria’s border with Turkey is divided. Yet long-term stability will require a peace agreement that treats the border as an indivisible whole. Read more
POLICY BRIEF, CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER
Reckless Abandon: Why Tunisia Can No Longer Delay a Border Free Trade Zone
Tunisia’s planned free trade zone in Ben Guerdane has stalled while similar projects in Libya have advanced. If Tunisian authorities move quickly to revitalize the plan, they can boost the economy and give hope to the marginalised border population. Read more
XCEPT Research on Conflict Dynamics
RESEARCH REPORT, ALCIS
Changing the Rules of the Game: How the Taliban Regulated Cross-Border Trade and Upended Afghanistan’s Political Economy
This research reveals just how fundamentally the rules that govern cross-border trade have changed since the Taliban takeover, upending the political economy of Afghanistan in the process. Read more
BLOG, THE ASIA FOUNDATION
The Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis and Responses in Cox’s Bazar: Five Years On
In August 2022 it will be five years since the start of one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, yet the political and security dynamics surrounding Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh remain unstable. Read more
RESEARCH REPORT, CHATHAM HOUSE
Moving Medicine in Iraq: Networks Fuelling Everyday Conflict
A system involving doctors, pharmacists, political parties, armed groups, and businesspeople fuels corruption and conflict in a medicine supply chain which kills people every year. Read more
RESEARCH REPORT, CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER
The Pitfalls of Saudi Arabia’s Security-Centric Strategy in Yemen
Saudi Arabia’s security is contingent on Yemen’s stability and economic prosperity. As such, Riyadh should help revive Yemen’s moribund economy in both the borderlands and the inland agricultural sector. Read more
BLOG, CHATHAM HOUSE
How the Captagon Trade Impacts Border Communities in Lebanon and Syria
Any policy designed to counter the growing Captagon trade must take into account its impact on local border communities. Read more
PODCAST, CHATHAM HOUSE
Africa Aware: Relations between Ethiopia and Sudan with Ahmed Soliman, Abel Abate Demissie, Kholood Khair and Yusuf Hassan
This episode of Africa Aware examines the relationship between Ethiopia and Sudan. Listen here
XCEPT Research on Violent and Peaceful Behaviour
RESEARCH REPORT, XCEPT
Youth Disrupted: Impact of Conflict and Violent Extremism on Adolescents in Northeast Syria
This study explores the impact of conflict and violent extremism on adolescents in northeast Syria to inform efforts to support recovery and prevent resurgent violence and violent extremism. Read more
REVIEW OF EVIDENCE, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
Prison-Based Interventions Targeting Violent Extremist Detainees
Little is understood about how prisons influences terrorists. This research explores which interventions have been most effective in rehabilitating violent extremists. Read more
POLICY BRIEF, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
The Role of Trauma and Mental Health in Violent Extremism
This paper assesses the impact of mental health and trauma on radicalisation and violent extremism. It argues that large-scale interdisciplinary research on non-ideological risk factors would benefit deradicalisation and prevention programming. Read more
POLICY BRIEF, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
Mass Media and Persuasion: Evidence-Based Lessons for Strategic Communications in Countering Violent Extremism
The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS has invested heavily in strategic communications. However, there is a weak evidence base to determine whether any of these efforts have their desired impact. Read more
BLOG, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
Bringing Loyalist and Opposition Factions Together: The Prospects for Reconciliation in New Syria
Western visions for post-war Syria often entail disarmament and reintegration of Islamist groups. There is, however, less discussion about how the legacies of state authoritarianism in regime or loyalist areas will likely hinder reconciliation. Read more
XCEPT Research on Methodologies
PRACTICE PAPER, THE ASIA FOUNDATION
Community-Driven Approaches to Research in Contexts of Protracted Crisis
This paper summarises the methodologies and approaches developed and the lessons that have surfaced from working with Rohingya populations living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Read more
BLOG, XCEPT
How Can Researchers Better Navigate the Profits and Perils of Satellite and Open-Source Investigations?
Satellite and open-source data are revolutionising conflict research. But these fast-accelerating research methods come with their own set of risks and require careful handling. Read more
BLOG, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
Do No (Self) Harm: Acknowledging Researcher Vulnerability in Research Ethics
This commentary explores why the welfare of the researcher frequently slips through the net of the ethical principle to ‘do no harm’. Read more
“People don’t want to go back to the past … but some people have to deal with the past.” This reflection formulated by youth in Northern Ireland reminds us of the long-lasting impact of conflict and begs the question whether the impact of trauma, and the weight of a violent past, can also be felt by those who did not directly live it. This question has recently been met with growing interest in different disciplines. In conflict settings in particular, the legacy of trauma is often seen as either supporting peace efforts or fueling further violence.
What is (inter)generational Trauma?
Research on intergenerational trauma, also referred to as transgenerational or historical trauma, is generally understood as exploring how legacies of historical and cultural events impact future generations. More widely, it examines how traumatic events, such as war, violence, and genocide, affect the children, grandchildren, and future genealogies of survivors. These legacies can affect individuals, family environments, community social ecologies, and wider historical narratives.
Researchers across disciplines look at these trauma legacies in different ways. In the 1960s, intergenerational or historical trauma was first researched by examining long-lasting trauma among Holocaust survivors and their families through a focus on traumatic memory. Since then, the study of intergenerational trauma has developed in different scholarly directions, providing us with a better understanding of the process of intergenerational trauma and its impact. One area of research has focused on the aftermath of violence, particularly recent studies examining the intergenerational traumatic effects of slavery and colonialism, and has brought with it recognition that trauma impacts communities beyond immediate survivors.
Biology, Family and Social Environment
Studies from clinical, societal, and historical perspectives have helped us understand intergenerational trauma specifically during or after conflict. For example, in a 2014 UCL study, researchers examined the intergenerational impact of war on children. They argued that, while the immediate effects of war on children were well studied, little was understood about the ways in which conflict could impact children across generations. They wanted to find out what the social and cultural environment could tell us about the multigenerational transmission of trauma. By examining exposure to violence, trauma, and stress, the researchers found associated impact in how these experiences affected further generations.
Maternal exposure to violence, specifically, suggests consequences on children’s health. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, children born out of conflict-related sexual violence are more likely to experience community stigma, which in turn can affect their mental health. In Gaza, researchers found “a strong association between maternal symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTSD, and PTSD symptoms in children”. This research encourages practitioners to consider stress and trauma in conflict experienced by parents, and mothers specifically, as factors influencing health and wellbeing outcomes of their children, in both conflict and non-conflict settings.
Beyond maternal impact, several studies have explored the legacy of parental and family culture in transgenerational trauma. Several studies exploring how trauma can be transmitted among refugee families acknowledge the significant role played by parents and families in how trauma is processed by children. This suggests that children whose parents have experienced traumatic events are more susceptible to mental health difficulties. But what might this look like in practice? Trauma experienced can create psychological, social, and economic challenges that impact the environment in which children develop. Survival mode is the way in which this struggle has been described by Ukrainian descendants of the 1932–1933 Holodomor genocide: a “constellation of emotions, inner states and trauma-based coping strategies emerged in the survivors during the genocide period and were subsequently transmitted into the second and third generations.” While research remains limited, the result of this transmission is consequential. The physical health and wellbeing of survivors can be impacted by events that took place decades earlier.[1]
Historical Narratives and Cultural Trauma
Given the transmission of trauma within families, historical legacies of trauma matter. If the experiences of parents, and the environment in which children are brought up, impacts their mental health, so do the stories they tell. For Holocaust survivors, this fact has long been acknowledged. Memory and Holocaust studies have illuminated how children carry the burden of their parents’ trauma and help us reflect on how trauma is processed in families and how stories from the war are told. Memory and migration researchers further consider how narratives of war, of migration, and of trauma, can be transmitted through family and community histories.
Professor Joy Damousi explores the transmission of war experiences among Greek migrants and the ways in which WW2 trauma narratives are transmitted to second generation migrants. The author suggests that the ways these narratives are shared by those who lived them is a piece of the puzzle to understand migrant experiences. In other words, historical narratives of war and trauma influence the lives of migrants beyond first generations. In Australia, these experiences have been linked to a culture of silence impacting social inclusion and dislocation. Through witnessing the trauma histories of their parents and families, children can be passed on the experience of conflict. In a book entitled Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma, Professor Gabriele Schwab considers transgenerational memory and asks how children may remember events they have not lived themselves. In his work on “postmemory” among Lebanese youth, Dr Craig Larkin offers some insights. Referred to as a socially experienced phenomenon or a traumatic rupture, he suggests that postmemory is the way in which the current generation is connected to, and distanced from, its collective, and potentially traumatic, past. Transgenerational trauma is experienced in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war and contributes to explaining the continuation of communal animosities and feelings of dislocation among local communities. Years after violence has ended, these generational trauma stories remain.
Beyond an individual’s biology and their environment, social processes and narratives can shape generation after generation. Although some of the evidence remains thin, particularly when it comes to specific transmission mechanisms of trauma across generations (biological, social, psychological), there is a wide recognition that such processes take place. As we have seen, the experience of children after conflict is strongly influenced by the experiences of their parents. The historical narratives told after conflict can shape upcoming generations, even after migration. There is no one way that trauma is transmitted, just as there is no one way of experiencing trauma. Transgenerational trauma can find its roots in an individual’s biology, in the experiences of parents, or in the ways in which a society deals with the aftermath of conflict. Further research is required to identify how intergenerational trauma is transmitted and, therefore, how it can be addressed. Finding answers to these questions will help inform relevant policy responses for communities suffering cycles of violence and for societies still dealing with the legacies of the past.
This article was originally published on the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation’s website.
[1] Another area of research developed in recent years is epigenetics. The field has focused on transgenerational trauma and yielded intense debate. For a discussion and overview of the debate on this question, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/health/mind-epigenetics-genes.html or https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190326-what-is-epigenetics. Importantly, further research testing biological, individual, and societal mechanisms of transmission, such as biological, individual, and societal pathways, should nonetheless continue.
What might Ukraine’s gun-toting grannies have in common with South Sudanese cattle raiders? At first glance, not much. The first are elderly, civilian women, taking up arms under exceptional circumstances to defend their homeland from Russian aggression. The second are young men, taking part in an enduring cultural practice that has become increasingly militarised, politicised and violent. One ostensibly contradicts gender and age-based norms concerning who ‘should’ fight and who should not, whilst the other seemingly conforms to those stereotypes. We associate the first with ‘peaceful civilians’, the second with ‘violent fighters’.
Yet these two groups have more in common than we might assume. Both are part of historical patterns where those who take up arms occupy multiple roles in society, and both represent the blurring of fighter-civilian identities that shape contemporary conflict and post-conflict dynamics.
The merging of fighter-civilian roles is not a new phenomenon – what is ‘new’ is the attempt to separate them. This separation, however, can pose problems, especially when it comes to building peace.
Holding the label of a ‘combatant’ or a ‘civilian’ can determine whether a person is able to access certain support programmes. Categorising people as fighters may thus exclude them from interventions aimed at helping people deal with their conflict-related trauma and behaviours. Tackling these is fundamental to reducing violence and promoting social cohesion, and so, if we don’t acknowledge the complex identities and dynamics surrounding those living in conflict zones, we risk undermining progress towards peace. If we can unpack this blurring of civilian-combatant identity, it will help us develop more nuanced, inclusive approaches to peace building.
The civilian-combatant distinction often disappears on the ground
But what do we actually mean by ‘civilian’ and ‘combatant’? For much of ancient and early modern history, the construction of separate soldier-civilian identities was non-existent. The Pharaonic army of Ancient Egypt was essentially made up of ‘seasonal soldiers’ who lived in barracks during the campaigning season but returned to the fields afterwards. Similarly, in the Hoplite armies of Ancient Greece, fighting was mostly done by ‘amateur militias’ who, rather than being mythologised fearless warriors, were citizen-soldiers who on occasion panicked and fled the battlefield.
Throughout history, there has been a blurring of military and civilian zones. Africa’s pre-colonial period was marked by cyclical episodes of violence, where military and ‘civil’ spheres merged without clear-cut distinctions of difference. Within societies, military organisations formed and developed in response to the needs of the community they were part of. Armies were made up of farmers, herders, and administrators, and were often assembled ad-hoc to deal with specific emergencies. When the armies were no longer needed, they disbanded, and the ‘soldiers’ returned to their normal occupations. Individuals were not identified solely as ’warriors’, but rather held multiple roles and occupations in society.
It wasn’t until the development of standing armies in 17th century Europe that a more distinct sense of military identity was born, and it was only in the early 19th century that ‘civilian’ was used to specifically describe a ‘non-military man’. Whilst the term ‘combatant’ has been in use since the 12th century, the idea of military distinction based on military specialism (and professionalism) is thought to be a ‘modern’ concept.
Today, the distinction between civilians and combatants stands clear. It determines military Rules of Engagement and Just War. It is the cornerstone of International Humanitarian Law, and it aims to protect those not involved in fighting: the civilians.
For those on the ground, however, the line is not quite so clear-cut. Patterns of militarisation in the pre-colonial past were shaped by the political, social and economic environments in which violence took place, and the same stands true today.
Take the South Sudanese cattle raiders. Cattle raiding has a long history in South Sudan, but the exploitation of these local conflicts has seen the armed herders brought into wider political movements. Now, raiders are heavily armed, and the practice is often deadly.
In Eastern Congo, members of non-state armed groups often have to rely on ‘civilian’ sources of livelihood for daily survival—activities that lie outside their armed group. These include brewing and selling alcohol, making charcoal, selling firewood, farming, and manual labour.
Building on a long tradition of coalesced identities where warrior and ‘civilian’ roles intertwined, today’s ‘fighters’ are often driven by context and community need – such as, for example, Ukraine’s grannies.
Simplistic distinctions risk excluding populations from relevant support
What do these fluid, overlapping identities mean in practice? Firstly, programmes and interventions need to recognise that categorising individuals as either combatants or civilians is reductive. It reinforces binary notions of ‘perpetrator’ or ‘victim’ where the reality is much more complex. Identities are often mixed, and acknowledging only one aspect means acknowledging only one aspect of a person’s experience. As history has shown us, those living in conflict zones simultaneously navigate multiple civilian and combatant identities, and that is still the case today.
Secondly, the existence of these two distinct lenses suggests there is a hierarchy of those who are seen as ‘deserving’ of recovery: one which is constructed around the notion of victimcy and ‘civilianhood’. In the Global South, for example, a ‘civilian’ is likely to be eligible for trauma interventions, but a ‘fighter’ is not. Conversely, ‘combatants’ are enrolled into Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes, but ‘civilians’ are not. It’s estimated that between 20-50% of former fighters in fragile and conflicted affected areas suffer from trauma and elevated levels of aggression, yet less than ten studies have specifically examined and addressed their mental health needs.[i] In comparison, a Google Scholar search of “trauma interventions for civilians after war” yields over 20,000 results. To help societies recover from the spill-over effects of violent conflict, policymakers need to ensure that all parties, whether civilian or combatant, are assessed for trauma and aggression so that they can access relevant support.
Finally, the blurring of civilian-combatant identities has implications for policies aimed at demobilising and reintegrating former fighters. To date, most DDR programmes prioritise occupational and socioeconomic elements over psychological support for mental health or cognitive disorders. A need for mental health support is not just the preserve of ‘civilians’, however, but also needs to include those labelled ‘combatants’. If we are to achieve peace, it is important to help people make sense of their own roles in, and experiences of, violent conflict. Policymakers must ensure that efforts to assist former fighters focus as much on addressing their behavioural, relational and cognitive needs as their economic ones. Conflict and post-conflict dynamics are complex, and it is vital that support and peace interventions can account for this.
[i] Baez, Sandra, Hernando Santamaría-García, and Agustín Ibáñez. “Disarming ex-combatants’ minds: toward situated reintegration process in post-conflict Colombia.” Frontiers in psychology 10 (2019): 73.
This article was originally published on the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation’s website
There are dozens of illegal crossings along the Syria-Lebanon border, through which hundreds of people cross every day along various smuggling routes. The people smuggling is controlled by local smuggling networks and XCEPT field research indicates that some of these are linked to the Syrian security and military services or to the Lebanese group Hezbollah. The methods and routes used by the smugglers depend on the motives of the individuals being transported across the border.
The majority of people who arrange to be smuggled across the border do so for financial reasons, including Syrians who are unable to secure the costs of entering Lebanon legally; Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are afraid to lose the few advantages that refugee status gives them; and Lebanese border area residents who cross the border daily.
Smuggling operations for this group of people is concentrated in the countryside of Homs. The roads on these routes are easy, and smugglers use buses or cars, and sometimes motorcycles, to transport people across the border. In these smuggling operations, a group of families is often smuggled together to a specific area within Syrian or Lebanese territory. Travelling on these smuggling routes costs between $100 and $150 per person, depending on the place of origin and destination, while families pay discounted group prices. The security and military forces of the Syrian regime, as well as Hezbollah, often turn a blind eye to this type of smuggling and are satisfied with fees paid to them by the smugglers.
People also arrange to be smuggled across the border for security reasons. This group includes a wide range of political opponents of the Assad regime, armed opposition fighters, persons wanted in criminal cases against whom police search warrants have been issued, as well as deserters from compulsory or reserve military service. This group mostly consists of men between the ages of 18 and 50.
The ‘security’ smuggling routes are more rugged, requiring those crossing the border this way to do so either by walking or riding animals, as well as chaperoning by smugglers or guides. These routes are also more expensive, often costing more than $1,000 per person, and the cost increases depending on two factors: the degree of importance of the person being smuggled to the security and military apparatus of the Syrian regime, and their place of origin and destination.
The most prominent examples of ‘security’ smuggling routes are the roads to and from the Lebanese town of Shebaa and the Syrian town of Tufail. The smuggling networks operating on both routes are linked to Hezbollah, transporting people from Shebaa or Tufail to the Lebanese interior. Demand for people smuggling along these routes often increases with the threat of Syrian regime forces carrying out military operations against reconciliation areas in the countryside of Damascus, Daraa and Quneitra. In recent months, the increased possibility of regime forces storming the towns of Kanaker and Zakia in the Damascus countryside, and Tafas in the Daraa countryside, has seen dozens of people who refused reconciliation or who are wanted by the regime make this journey.
A third smuggling route is the ‘military line’, a more expensive and less common form of people smuggling. This is not the military line used by the Syrian forces during the 1976-2005 period of Syrian guardianship over Lebanon, but a description given to a method of people smuggling carried out by Hezbollah members in their cars, through specific illegal crossings. Through these ‘military lines’, passengers are not subjected to any security oversight by any party on either side of the border. The cost of such a smuggling operation between Beirut and Damascus ranges between $3,000 and $10,000. The majority who choose this route are wealthy people, holders of foreign citizenships, or Syrians residing in Europe as refugees and wishing to visit Syria without obtaining official authorization, as that could result in them losing their refugee status.
Arrests or kidnappings are common in some smuggling operations, targeting people who have tried to evade payment or who use smuggling routes that are not appropriate for their case. Most kidnappings take place in Homs, along the easier smuggling routes. In such cases, smugglers often sell people to kidnapping gangs, who negotiate with their relatives to pay the ransom. After ransom is paid, the gang may offer them a choice: return to Syria or continue the process of being smuggled to Lebanon.
The methods used to smuggle someone between Syria and Lebanon will vary depending on the person’s security situation and their financial status. If a person’s security situation becomes more complicated, the smuggling method changes and the price increases. Smuggling networks seem to have a unified price list for the different types of security concerns, from criminal charges to being wanted by the security and military services. For the right price, it seems, anyone can be smuggled across the border, no matter how much they oppose the Syrian regime or Hezbollah, and no matter what crime they have committed.
This article was originally published on the Chatham House website.
Abdullahi Umar Eggi grew up in a nomadic family in Taraba State, Nigeria, and has undertaken extensive research to understand how and why pastoralism is changing in the region. He’s currently carrying out research on cross-border pastoralism, environmental change, peace and conflict along the borders of Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger as part of Conciliation Resources’ XCEPT research. Here, he tells us about his upbringing, and what he’s learning from his latest research.
I grew up in a Fulani nomadic family in Karim Lamido, part of Taraba State in northeastern Nigeria. I also spent time in Cameroon during my childhood, as my mother is Cameroonian. Growing up, I would migrate around north-eastern Nigeria and into Cameroon with my family in search of greener pasture for our livestock. This is called ‘transhumance’. It is a central part of our community life and identity; yet it also allowed me to gain a good understanding of the region’s topography as well as its many communities, including communities that weren’t from the Fulani tribe. The region is a patchwork of different tribes – there are around 200 in Taraba and Adamawa States alone.
I attended a nomadic school during my early years. Some of the nomadic schools were permanent structures while others were teaching under the shade of trees. The teachers were normally from the villages near our dry season and rainy season camps. For some weeks, during seasonal transhumance with our animals, there would be no school, but when we reached our destination, the children would proceed with their education in the nomadic school in the new location. These schools were well-resourced when I was young, but sadly pastoralist children nowadays struggle to get a decent primary education.
I met Adam Higazi, the lead researcher on the Promoting peaceful pastoralism project, during my time at University in Jos. We’ve been working togetherfor over 10 years now, exploring different facets of pastoralism across the whole region.
There is a general misperception in Nigeria of the relationship between pastoralism and issues such as criminality. We realised from our fieldwork that a lot of Nigerian media has a superficial understanding of what is happening on the ground; it’s widely reported that pastoralists from outside Nigeria – from Niger, Chad and Cameroon – are arriving in Nigeria and causing trouble. Our research to date hasn’t shown that to be the case. In Jigawa and Kano, some of the border communities we visited were not Fulani but actually Hausa and Kanuri – tribes seen to be less inclined to be friendly to pastoralists – but they reported to us that the cross-border herders were peaceful. In our study area in the central axis of northern Nigeria (Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe), we found peaceful cooperation between pastoralists moving south from Niger during the dry season and their host communities.
At the same time, we can’t deny that there are pastoralists who are involved in violence and criminality in northern Nigeria. In Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto States, towards Nigeria’s northwest, there are serious problems related to banditry. In these areas, many of those undertaking violence are Fulanis recruited into criminal gangs. But some of their biggest victims are Fulani pastoralists themselves; in these areas, pastoralists are routinely attacked and their livestock stolen. This creates the bandits of the future; when young pastoralist men lose their cattle they lose their livelihoods, and it makes them vulnerable to recruitment by criminal gangs.
This partly explains why banditry has rapidly escalated in Nigeria’s northwest, but it is not the whole story. Negligent governance has meant grazing reserves and cattle routes have not been maintained, and ‘land grabbing’ of common land has increasingly been allowed to happen. Despite the peaceful situation in our XCEPT study areas to date, we recorded these kinds of governance failings starting to play out, and worry that it will lead to increased cattle rustling and banditry in previously peaceful areas. Just this morning, my brothers informed me that some of our family’s cattle was stolen in Taraba State, and the gang kidnapped six of the herders. So it’s already starting to happen.
Despite the fact that it’s a very small minority of Fulani involved in criminality, non-Fulani Nigerians have lost trust in the Fulani. But there’s a real lack of understanding of what is going on in northern rural areas, and there are no effective government policies or interventions which separate out the criminal elements amongst the Fulani from the majority that are peaceful. So if things keep going the way they are, mistrust of pastoralists will grow even further.
What we observed from the research in Adamawa – as well as the XCEPT research we did in early 2022 in Bauchi, Gombe and Jigawa states – is the pressures of the massive population increases that are occurring in the north of the country. Farmers need more land to meet demand, whilst pastoralist communities continue growing and need land for grazing; so there’s a clash of interest between these two communities. On top of this, land grabbing further reduces land availability.
Environmental protection has also suffered. Traditionally, there was a culture of respect towards nature. Now large-scale farming clears forests and woodland to make way for cultivation, which has degraded the grasses and trees needed for grazing, and increased desertification. All of this means a large number of pastoralists are leaving Nigeria to go to Cameroon because the conditions in Nigeria are no longer conducive for their livelihood. Future fieldwork in Cameroon will help us understand the consequences of this.
Our previous research in Yobe and Borno states in Nigeria looked at these issues. We found that the Shekau faction of Boko Haram has been extremely predatory towards pastoralist communities in their areas of operation: attacking camps, rustling cattle, kidnapping and killing people. Even last year, my uncle was a direct victim of Shekau – his cattle were stolen and the herder he had hired to rear the animals was killed. Boko Haram attacks resulted in large-scale displacements of pastoralists southwards into Adamawa and Taraba, but also across to Cameroon and as far as Central African Republic. But recently the Shekau faction has been greatly weakened as a result of internal splits and military pressure, so we’re seeing pastoralists return – to a certain extent – to areas that would have been no-go a few years back.
ISWAP, which operates near Lake Chad, is largely tolerant of pastoralist communities, so long as they pay their zakat (tax) to the group. Our XCEPT research will take us to Maiduguri in Borno State to gain an updated understanding of the ongoing insurgency and its impact on pastoralist movement.
I think this kind of research can be really helpful. What we realise is that most of the information that people base their opinions and actions on in northern Nigeria isn’t based on what is happening at the grassroots. This has hardened attitudes towards pastoralists and Fulani people, and made it harder for those trying to take action to be effective.
We’ve seen examples of peacebuilding initiatives which show promise, but often the people leading them don’t grasp the local realities of pastoralism. In the next three or four years, pastoralism may become impossible.
Politically, pastoralists suffer from a lack of genuine representation. In effect, there are two levels of Fulani: the ‘town’ Fulanis, who have political influence, and those who are rural, largely nomadic, pastoralists. At the state and federal levels, Fulanis are actually quite well represented, but crucially these people aren’t pastoralists, and there’s a wide gap between them and rural pastoral communities. A lack of education for pastoralists reinforces this, with very few managing to get into positions of influence.
So this research is building a base of knowledge which can assist those who really want to create better responses to the challenges in these regions. We’re gaining access to local-level perspectives which need to be shared with people at the state, federal and international level, but also locally, to help to build confidence and dialogue within communities so that their livelihoods can be protected and they can co-exist more peacefully.
Top photo: Pastoralists at home on Jereende Pampo, a small island on the River Benue, Yola North LGA, Adamawa State, Nigeria. Recently arrived migrant farmers are trying to take over the island for cultivation, reducing the space for grazing there. Conciliation Resources/XCEPT researcher Abdullahi Umar Eggi is furthest to the right.
In 2022, populations across the world have reeled from a global cost of living crisis. Children in low and middle income countries are going to bed hungry, while for some families, drops in income will wipe out the equivalent of household healthcare budgets. By some estimates, 71 million people could fall into poverty.
African populations have borne some of the greatest hardships of crises taking place both near and far. While attention has rightly been on war between Russia and Ukraine, local and regional conflict has long undermined economic development across almost a third of the African continent. Local and regional conflict compounds (and is sometimes caused by) other supply constraints rooted in climate change and poor infrastructure, particularly in the agricultural sector.
This matters because struggles to eat, go to work, and save for the future threaten political stability and could create further violent conflict, which would accelerate economic decline. In Europe, fuel price hikes have already stoked social unrest. While some governments are spending big to protect citizens through tax reductions, wage increases, and price subsidies, others will have few tools at their disposal. Instead, their populations will be forced to adapt, changing patterns of work, consumption, and trade.
Research for XCEPT by Emani sought to understand this at a local level. In March and April 2022, in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we spoke to over 3,000 people across 11 locations in Ethiopia, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan (Figure 1) – all of which import wheat from Russia or Ukraine.
The research zoomed in on the local effects of this conflict and the unique ways in which these effects interact with local dynamics. It compared the current situation with local challenges over the last decade, wider patterns of economic marginalisation, and the agency of residents – how are they coping with these challenges? What are the local effects of government policies? And what are the wider implications for stability in the region?
Here are five of our key takeaways.
1. Food and fuel prices have climbed fast
We asked survey respondents to tell us how much they were paying for staple foods ‘now’ (April 2022). Then we asked them to compare current prices with their experiences of spikes in price since 2010. Consumers were suffering particularly where imported products were popular. For example, Algerian milk was being sold in Agadez for nearly five times more in 2022 than 2010. A 25kg bag of rice cost 62% more in Agadez compared with 2011, and a ‘rubber’ (4kg bag) of rice in Oredo (Nigeria) cost 69% more. Some of the increases, however, were recent and sudden. In Sebha and Zawiya (Libya), flour was up 22% and 33% respectively in April compared to the beginning of 2022.
In some places, we asked about motor fuel too. Fuel prices in locations in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Niger were at their 12-year peak at the time of data collection (Figure 2).
2. Conflict, COVID-19, and currency values drove price fluctuations
Conflict is one of the main drivers of fuel prices in Libya. Libyans usually enjoy relatively cheap, subsidised fuel at around $0.03 per litre. As a result, when subsidised fuel becomes scarce, the rates set by the market are much higher than elsewhere. For example, for the three years after the outbreak of the Libyan civil war in 2014, the average fuel prices in Zawiya and Kufra skyrocketed to $0.79, 26 times the typical price.
In the areas we studied, the real, on-the-ground issue that shaped trade – and, by extension, prices – was the ability to move goods. Insecurity in Libya made driving goods down from the northern ports to Sebha (and onwards to Agadez) more expensive, with drivers asking higher fees and militia groups demanding unofficial taxes.
The availability of space for goods in southward-moving vehicles may also have been affected by policies designed to disrupt organised crime. A clamp-down on the smuggling of migrants from Agadez (Niger) through Sebha (Libya) reduced the number of vehicles travelling north with passengers and, correspondingly, the number of vehicles returning south with space to carry goods. Interviewees told us that this made it more expensive to move goods from Libya to Niger.
The unpredictable security environment had similar effects in Ethiopia and Sudan. The outbreak of the conflict in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, in late 2020 led to closures along the border. Towns on either side of the border, such as Gallabat in Sudan and Metema in Ethiopia, were cut off from one another. These towns had previously benefitted from joint trading agreements allowing for free cross-border movement during market days. The impact has been an increase in cross-border smuggling and in the cost of basic goods. For example, residents of Mai Kadra, on the Ethiopian side of the border, noted the price of vegetables and cereals rising as a result of supply shortages caused by blockades at Sudanese border crossings.
Onions per kilo [have gone] from 5 birr to 40 birr, tomatoes per kilo [have gone] from 4 birr to 40 birr… The main reason for this is the war and the resulting blockade of trade through the border crossings at Lugdi, Hamdayit and Medebay [district] … and the general national level shortage of supplies.
Interviewee in Mai Kadra
[Since] the blockage of the border some of the [businesses] are not performing well and some of the labourers are [laid-off] … There is very [little] merchandise imported from the border.
Survey respondent, Metema
In addition to conflict, a second key factor driving price fluctuations was the cost of foreign currency and reliance on – or desire for – imported goods, including basic food items such as pasta, flour and rice. For example, the COVID-induced closure of the Niger-Algeria border strongly impacted the price of pasta – widely consumed in Agadez and almost exclusively imported from Algeria.
With the exception of the pegged and stable West African Franc, people told us that wild variations in the value of the Naira, Libyan Dinar, Sudanese Pound, and Ethiopian Birr severely hampered their ability to pay for foreign goods. Other reasons were poor infrastructure, mismanagement of public resources and funds (Kufra), interruption in fuel subsidies (Sudan), and a ban on imported goods (Nigeria).
The closure of the Algerian border had a significant impact, especially on the price of wheat flour.
Representative of local government business centre, Agadez
3. Self-reliance offers some protection against price spikes
Monthly incomes vary considerably across the locations we studied (Figure 3). Yet the pain consumers are feeling does not necessarily correspond to their purchasing power. In rural Edo State (Nigeria), where the average income is only $46 per month, respondents were much less likely to notice spikes in food prices than in other areas we studied. Almost all Nigerians purchase at least some of their food, but those who rely on subsistence farming seem to be somewhat protected from market volatility.
Economic hardship may be driving deeper change in social and economic relations at the micro level. We found that residents of Oredo in Benin City (Edo State, Nigeria) were increasingly spending weekends in their ancestral villages to grow the vegetables they could no longer afford to buy on the market. This is despite the average income in peri-urban Oredo being nearly six times that of rural Igueben, a couple of hours drive away.
The only way I cope is visiting my home town to cultivate some of our own food and survive through that means.
Male, 25, in Oredo, Nigeria
Conversely, dependence on more expensive imported foods left some vulnerable to increases in price. For many, consumption of imported rice is a show of status – such that even local rice is sometimes packaged as having come from abroad in order to attract a premium. Nigeria’s ban on the import of most rice from abroad plus the more recent devastation of rice paddies in floods will drive prices up. Many households will feel noticeably poorer and have to change what they consume. At worst, they may struggle to put food on the table.
4. People are coping, some better than others
The situation appears most desperate in Kufra (Libya), where many respondents had stopped cooking hot meals to save on cooking gas – and some had reduced the number of meals they eat to save money on food, while taking on debt to make ends meet. Respondents in Sebha (Libya) were eating less meat and baking more at home. Across our Libya research sites, respondents reported switching to low-cost food brands. Facebook groups were important in helping residents to find good deals.
In Gedaref (Sudan), farmers were switching from sorghum, millet and wheat to more profitable cotton and maize production. This will decrease domestic food production and potentially exacerbate food insecurity in the region. People in Ethiopia, Niger and Nigeria described substituting cooking gas for wood, even though many were aware of the damage this could do to the environment – from deforestation in Edo State (Nigeria) and in Tigray (Ethiopia) to desertification in Agadez (Niger).
We are dependent on the electricity supply when there is no gas [and when it’s not available] we can sometimes cook just once per week.
Interviewee in Sebha, Libya
Sometimes we have to use wood to prepare food, and I walk long distances because of the lack of time to get gas for the car.
Interviewee in Kufra, Libya
5. Crime thrives in the absence of the state
In most locations, the state regulated and often subsidised the sale of both staple foods and fuel. In Kufra (Libya), with the lowest average income of the three areas studied in Libya, most respondents were receiving subsidies for food (82%) and medicine (76%). Government support was otherwise quite limited in scale and reach. Participants in Edo (Nigeria) mostly said support was negligible. The same was true for Gedaref and North Darfur (Sudan). Respondents in Mai Kadra (Ethiopia) said that government support had collapsed following the outbreak of conflict in 2020.
When the state cannot provide, people turn to other means and methods, which can further undermine the government’s ability to maintain the rule of law. Research participants in Metema (Ethiopia) told us about the importance of smuggling to bolster incomes. In Libya, subsidised goods were being appropriated by criminal groups and sold at high prices. In Sudan, the gap in officially sanctioned financial services is filled by unofficial money lenders and remitters.
Most local people have livelihoods strongly linked with contraband and smuggling … the smuggling is the source of non-food items such as soap, cloths, and related [goods].
Focus group participant, Metema, Ethiopia
Cooking gas is officially 5 dinars and is sold in the black market for 35-90 Dinar ($7.42 – $19.09).
Interviewee in Sebha, Libya
Peace through economic wellbeing
Even if the geopolitical and public health issues that have throttled food and fuel supply chains are resolved soon, people will continue to struggle. Among other repercussions, the scarcity of affordable goods on formal markets will drive the growth in informal trade, which will undermine state revenues and so the capacity of governments to provide services, in turn leading to a lack of public faith in the government. Declining tax revenues, popular discontent, and illicit financial flows are a potent mix in the Sahel, Horn of Africa, and Libya, where state authority is often already in question.
It’s not the first time that the countries we were researching – and others in Africa – have faced being locked into a vicious cycle of conflict and constrained economic growth. Economic growth rates are as much as 2.5 percentage points lower in countries affected by conflict, and the longer the conflict lasts the more those countries fall behind. And just as conflict constrains growth, prosperity can boost peace.
Yet as others have pointed out before, responses to conflict on the continent tend to focus on security, with the licit economy often collateral to measures aiming to disrupt illegal trade and armed groups. Instead, prioritising the licit flow of goods in critical cross-border towns and provinces can improve wellbeing, a sense of local stability, and weaken incentives towards potentially destabilising activities, from appropriation and smuggling of subsidised goods, to the more nefarious trade in drugs and arms.
