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5 Countries Where Violence Could Break Out in 2024
Some of these nations have been dealing with simmering unrest which could erupt this year and seize the global spotlight.
Jan 01, 2024
Sadly, 2023 was a violent one on the global stage. War broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, leading to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis, including many children on both sides. And the bitter war between Russia and Ukraine continued with no end in sight.
As a result of the focus on these two conflicts, other countries have dropped off the radar for many people. Some of these nations have been dealing with simmering unrest, however, which could erupt in 2024 and seize the global spotlight.
So, where should we be watching in the coming year? Here are five places where I believe civil conflicts or unrest could worsen and potentially lead to violence.
Myanmar
Myanmar descended into chaos in 2021 when a military coup overthrew the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked widespread civil protests that eventually morphed into an armed resistance.
The country, home to 135 ethnic groups, has rarely known peace. For years before the coup, there was a ongoing, low-grade civil conflict between the military and several minority ethnic groups who have long sought control over natural resources in their regions and independence from the state.
This exploded after the coup as ethnic militia groups joined forces with pro-democracy fighters from the Bamar majority protesting the junta.
The country’s civil war may worsen considerably in 2024 and regain international attention.
Their resistance escalated in late 2023 with a coordinated northern offensive dealing the military its most significant losses in many years.
Insurgents won control of towns and villages on the northeastern border with China, including control over key trade routes. This led to renewed fighting in western Rakhine state, as well as in other areas.
The tenacity of the resistance of these minority groups, paired with the refusal of the military to compromise, suggests the country’s civil war may worsen considerably in 2024 and regain international attention.
Mali
In Mali, a nation in the turbulent Sahel region of Africa, tensions escalated throughout 2023 and now threaten to erupt into full-scale civil war.
Mali has long battled insurgent activity. In 2012, Mali’s government fell in a coup and Tuareg rebels, backed by Islamist militants, seized power in the north.
A United Nations peacekeeping mission was established in 2013 to bring stability to Mali. Then, in 2015, key rebel groups signed a peace agreement with the Mali government.
With the 2015 peace agreement now all but dead, we can expect increased volatility in 2024.
After two more coups in 2020 and 2021, military officers consolidated their power and said they would restore the state’s full territorial control over all of Mali. The regime insisted the U.N. peacekeeping mission withdraw from the country, which it did in June 2023. Subsequently, violence broke out between the military and rebel forces over future use of the U.N. bases.
In November, the military, reportedly backed by Russia’s Wagner Group, took control of the strategic northern town of Kidal which had been held by Tuareg forces since 2012. This undermines the fragile peace that has held since 2015.
It is unlikely the military will regain complete control over all rebel-held areas in the north. At the same time, insurgents are emboldened. With the 2015 peace agreement now all but dead, we can expect increased volatility in 2024.
Lebanon
In 2019, widespread civil protest broke out in Lebanon against leaders who were perceived not to be addressing the day-to-day needs of the population.
The situation continued to deteriorate, with a reshuffled government, escalating economic crisis, and a massive port explosion that exposed corrupt practices.
Most recently, the war between Israel and Hamas has threatened to spill over to Lebanon, home to the Hezbollah militant group, which claims to have an army of 100,000 fighters.
The International Monetary Fund criticized Lebanon in September for a lack of economic reform. The Lebanese government has also failed to reach agreement on appointing a president, a post that has been vacant for more than a year.
This risks undermining the fragile power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon in which the key political posts of prime minister, speaker, and president are allocated to a Sunni-Muslim, Shia-Muslim, and Christian Maronite, respectively.
Most recently, the war between Israel and Hamas has threatened to spill over to Lebanon, home to the Hezbollah militant group, which claims to have an army of 100,000 fighters. Importantly, this jeopardises tourism as a key hope for Lebanon’s economic recovery.
These factors may precipitate a more serious economic and political collapse in 2024.
Pakistan
Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, the military has played an interventionist role in politics. Though Pakistani leaders are popularly elected, military officials have at times removed them from power.
In 2022, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan fell out of favor with Pakistan’s militant leaders. He was subsequently ousted from power in a parliament vote and later arrested on charges that his supporters claim are politically motivated.
Violent demonstrations broke out nationwide after his arrest—a display of anger against the military that was once unthinkable.
Pakistan also faces spillover from instability in neighboring Afghanistan and increased terror attacks. These security challenges have been compounded by a struggling economy and ongoing costs from the devastating 2022 floods.
Pakistan is expected to hold parliamentary elections in February 2024, after which the current military caretaker government is expected to transfer power back to civilian rule. Many are watching the military closely. If this transfer of power does not take place, or there are delays, civil unrest may result.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka faced a debilitating economic crisis in 2022 that led to critical fuel, food, and medical shortages. Civil protests caused then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. He was quickly replaced by current President Ranil Wickremesingh.
Stability returned in 2023 as Sri Lanka began implementing economic reforms as part of a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund. However, widespread dissatisfaction with political elites and the underlying drivers of the country’s economic hardship have not been addressed.Elections are also due in Sri Lanka by late 2024. While Wickremesingh, the incumbent, is likely to run for a second term, he has low trust with the public. He is viewed as too close to corrupt political elites.
This dissatisfaction could lead to renewed protests—particularly if the economy stumbles again—in a repeat of the situation that led to Rajapaksa’s ousting in 2022.
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'A Sigh of Relief' as Hundreds of Rohingya Refugees Rescued After Harrowing Sea Journeys
However, around 180 other Rohingya are feared dead amid reports their overcrowded boat sank after setting sail from Bangladesh earlier this month.
Dec 28, 2022
The rescue of hundreds of Rohingya refugees by fishers and local authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province was praised Tuesday as "an act of humanity" by United Nations officials, while relatives of around 180 Rohingya on another vessel that's been missing for weeks feared that all aboard had perished.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that "Indonesia has helped to save 472 people in the past six weeks from four boats, showing its commitment and respect of basic humanitarian principles for people who face persecution and conflict."
"We feel like we got a new world today... We could see their faces again. It's really a moment of joy for all of us."
"UNHCR urges other states to follow this example. Many others did not act despite numerous pleas and appeals for help," the Geneva-based agency added. "States in the region must fulfill their legal obligations by saving people on boats in distress to avoid further misery and deaths."
Ann Maymann, the UNHCR representative in Indonesia, said in a statement that "we welcome this act of humanity by local communities and authorities in Indonesia."
"These actions help to save human lives from certain death, ending torturous ordeals for many desperate people," she added.
\u201cPengungsi Muslim Rohingya Myanmar di Pantai Gampong Ujong Pi'e Muara Tiga Laweung Pidie @Aceh\u201d— Aceh (@Aceh) 1672056262
The Syndey Morning Herald reports residents of Ladong, a fishing village in Aceh, rushed to help 58 Malaysia-bound Rohingya men who arrived Sunday in a rickety wooden boat, many of them severely dehydrated and starving.
The following day, 174 more starving Rohingya men, women, and children, were helped ashore by local authorities and fishers after more than a month at sea.
Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, whose 27-year-old sister Hatamonesa was aboard the boat with her 5-year-old daughter, told Pakistan's Arab News that "we feel like we got a new world today."
“We could see their faces again. It's really a moment of joy for all of us," he said of his family. Speaking of his sister, he added that "she thought that she would die in the voyage at sea."
\u201cStarvation, hunger and dehydration made them half. Rohingya betting their lives for survival by taking the dangerous journey via sea\u201d— Aung Kyaw Moe (@Aung Kyaw Moe) 1672113525
Babar Baloch, the UNHCR regional spokesperson in Bangkok, stated that 26 people had died aboard the rescued vessel, which left Bangladesh a month ago.
"We were raising alarm about this boat in early December because we had information that it was in the regional waters at least at the end of November," he said. "So when we first got reports that it was somewhere near the coast of Thailand, we approached authorities asking them to help, then when it was moving towards Indonesia and Malaysia we did the same."
"After its engine failure and it was drifting in the sea, there were reports of this boat being spotted close to Indian waters and we approached and asked them as well and we were also in touch with authorities in Sri Lanka," Baloch continued.
"Currently as we speak, the only countries in the region that have acted are Indonesia, in big numbers, and Sri Lanka as well."
According to the BBC, the Indian navy appears to have towed the boat into Indonesian waters after giving its desperate passengers some food and water. The boat drifted for another six days before it was allowed to land.
"Currently as we speak, the only countries in the region that have acted are Indonesia, in big numbers, and Sri Lanka as well," Baloch said. "It is an act in support of humanity, there's no other way to describe it."
Relatives of around 180 other Rohingya who left Bangladesh on December 2 said Tuesday that they fear the overcrowded vessel has sunk in the Andaman Sea. Mohammad Noman, a resident of a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, told The Guardian that his sister was aboard the boat with her two daughters, who are 5 and 3 years old.
"Every day we called up the boat two or three times on the boatman's satellite phone to find out if my sister and her two daughters were all right. Since December 8, I have failed to get access to that phone," he said. "I know some other people in Cox's Bazar who made phone calls to the boat every day and stayed in contact with their relatives there. None of them has succeeded to reach the phone after December 8."
\u201cAt least 180 Rohingya feared dead says U.N. refugee agency. Countries in the region fail to assist in locating and rescuing those stranded, passing the buck despite risk of lives lost https://t.co/Pm0IzpVNiP\u201d— meenakshi ganguly (@meenakshi ganguly) 1672111094
The captain of another vessel transporting Rohingya refugees said he saw the distressed boat swept up in stormy seas sometime during the second week of December.
"It was around 2:00 am when a strong wind began blowing and big waves surfaced on the sea. [Their] boat began swaying wildly, we could gauge from a flashlight they were pointing at us," he told The Guardian. "After some time, we could not see the flashlight anymore. We believe the boat drowned then."
More than a million Rohingya Muslims are crowded into squalid refugee camps in southern Bangladesh after having fled ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and other violence and repression in Rakhine state, Myanmar, which is ruled by a military dictatorship. Since 2020, thousands of Rohingya have fled the camps by sea.
\u201cWho are the #Rohingya\u201d— Protect The Rohingya (@Protect The Rohingya) 1672070107
Hundreds have died during the perilous journey. If the sinking of the boat with 180 aboard is confirmed, it would make 2022 the deadliest year for Rohingya at sea, according to UNHCR.
UNHCR's Baloch stressed that "countries and states in the region have international obligations to help desperate people."
"We have been calling on states to go after people smugglers and human traffickers as they are responsible for putting people on those death-trap boats, but victims have to be saved and saving human life is the most important act," he told the Morning Herald.
"The refugee issue and saving lives cannot just be left to one country, it has to be done collectively, together in the region," he added.
Tun Khin, a Rohingya activist and refugee who now heads the Burmese Rohingya Organization U.K., took aim at regional power Australia, which has been criticized for decades over its abuse of desperate seaborne asylum-seekers, nearly all of whom are sent to dirty, crowded offshore processing centers on Manus Island and Nauru to await their fate.
"Australia has too often set a shameful example for the region through its treatment of refugees," he told the Morning Herald.
"These people are facing genocide in Burma," Khin added, using the former official name of Myanmar. "It is a hopeless situation for them in Bangladesh, there is no dignity of life there."
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Justice Demanded After Qatari World Cup Official Admits Hundreds of Migrant Worker Deaths
"Until all abuses suffered by migrant workers in Qatar are remedied, the legacy of this World Cup will be severely tarnished by their mistreatment," said Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice.
Nov 29, 2022
An Amnesty International campaigner on Tuesday led calls for "truth, justice, and compensation" after Qatar's World Cup chief admitted that hundreds of migrant workers died during the construction of projects related to the FIFA tournament.
"Without full investigations the true scale of lives lost can never be known."
In an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan aired on TalkTV, Hassan Al-Thawadi, secretary general of the Qatar World Cup Supreme Committee, was asked how many migrant workers--who make up 90% of the nation's workforce--have died during the construction of $300 billion worth of tournament-related infrastructure including stadiums, hotels, highways, railways, and an expanded international airport.
"The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500," Al-Thawadi replied. "I don't have the exact number, that's something that's been discussed. One death is too many, it's as simple as that."
\u201cQatar 22 chief Hassan Al Thawadi tells Piers Morgan an estimated 400-500 migrant workers died in Qatar as a result of wider infrastructure work connected to World Cup. \nOrganisers say on actual stadia sites 3 migrant workers died with 37 further fatalities due to non work reasons\u201d— Dan Roan (@Dan Roan) 1669714740
Responding to Al-Thawadi's remarks, Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice, said that "the continued debate around the number of workers who have died in the preparation of the World Cup exposes the stark reality that so many bereaved families are still waiting for truth and justice."
"Over the last decade, thousands of workers have returned home in coffins, with no explanation given to their loved ones," he noted. An analysis by The Guardian found that more than 6,500 workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka died in Qatar since the repressive Gulf monarchy was awarded soccer's premier international tournament in late 2010. The Guardian's estimate, however, has been criticized for counting all foreign worker deaths in the country over the past decade.
"Qatar's extreme heat and grueling working conditions are likely to have contributed to hundreds of these deaths, but without full investigations, the true scale of lives lost can never be known," Cockburn continued. "Meanwhile, families are suffering the added anguish of severe financial insecurity that comes from losing the main wage earner."
\u201cWe get so lost in debating the numbers of how many workers have died in Qatar, we often forget that behind every figure is a person with a family who has lost both a loved one and any chance of financial security. They need truth and compensation.\n\n#PayUpFIFA #PayUpQatar\u201d— Steve Cockburn (@Steve Cockburn) 1669737770
"There is nothing natural about this scale of loss and there can be no excuse for denying families truth, justice, and compensation any longer," he added. "Until all abuses suffered by migrant workers in Qatar are remedied, the legacy of this World Cup will be severely tarnished by their mistreatment."
Al-Thawadi asserted that conditions are improving for migrant workers in Qatar, noting the implementation of a 1,000 riyal, or about $275, minimum monthly wage and increased attention to safety.
"I think every year the health and safety standards on the sites are improving, at least on our sites, the World Cup sites, the ones that we're responsible for, most definitely," he said.
A spokesperson for Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy appeared to backpedal Al-Thawadi's remarks in a Tuesday statement reiterating the Qatari government's claim of just three work-related and 37 non-work-related migrant worker deaths during the World Cup construction period.
"Separate quotes regarding figures refer to national statistics covering the period of 2014-2020 for all work-related fatalities (414) nationwide in Qatar, covering all sectors and nationalities," the agency said.
Hari, a 27-year-old Nepalese builder who earned 700 riyals a month in a country where the average Qatari household makes more than 100 times more, described working conditions to CNN earlier this month:
It was too hot. The foreman was very demanding and used to complain a lot. The foreman used to threaten to reduce our salaries and overtime pay. I had to carry tiles on my shoulder to the top. It was very difficult going up through the scaffolding. In the pipeline work, there were 5-7 meters deep pits, we had to lay the stones and concrete, it was difficult due to the heat. It was difficult to breathe. We had to come upstairs using a ladder to drink water. At some places, they didn't have water. Some places, they didn't provide us water on time. At some places, we used to go to houses nearby asking for water.
It never happened to me, but I saw some workers fainting at work. I saw one Bengali, one Nepali... two to three people faint while working. They took the Bengali to medical services. I'm not sure what happened to him.
A 2019 study of 1,300 Nepali migrant worker deaths in Qatar published in Cardiology Journal found a "strong correlation" between toiling in extreme heat and dying from heart problems.
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