A Pandemic of Violence? The Impact of COVID-19 on Conflict

Abstract

This article examines the impact and repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on patterns of armed conflict around the world. It argues that there are two main ways in which the pandemic is likely to fuel, rather than mitigate, conflict and engender further violence in conflict-prone countries: (1) the exacerbating effect of COVID-19 on the underlying root causes of conflict and (2) the exploitation of the crisis by governments and non-state actors who have used the coronavirus to gain political advantage and territorial control. The article uses data collected in real-time by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Johns Hopkins University to illustrate the unfolding and spatial distribution of conflict events before and during the pandemic and combine this with three brief case studies of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Libya. Descriptive evidence shows how levels of violence have remained unabated or even escalated during the first five months of the pandemic and how COVID-19-related social unrest has spread beyond conflict-affected countries.

COVID-19 and armed conflict

“…In five of the nine countries analysed, armed conflict prevalence increased in the face of the pandemic. This is further evidence that health diplomacy approaches demonstrating goodwill and reducing grievances have little impact during the pandemic ( Polo, 2020 ). COVID-19 did not change the root causes or principal dynamics of the armed conflicts in any of these five countries, but it accelerated existing trends and provided strategic opportunities for armed groups to exploit.…”

The impact of armed conflict on the epidemiological situation of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Libya, Syria, and Yemen

“…Studies on the impact of armed conflicts on the spread of COVID-19 in conflict hotspots were rarely reported. The effects of armed-conflict on infectious diseases are multi-faceted and complex (14). However, counter-intuitive observations of both increase and decrease in infectious disease outbreaks during and after conflicts have been noticed.…”

“…It provides high quality and widely used source of real-time data on political violence and protests around the world (see https://www.acleddata.com). To avoid misinterpretation, we focus on overall trends, not on individual events that may be poorly expressed in the time series(12).…”

Untitled

“…Over and above valuing the monetary losses, efforts are to made to dive deep into tangible and intangible social impacts happening in the communities too. Many researchers have reported different field shreds of evidence of sudden growth in conflicts and geopolitical tensions around the world since the COVID-19 outbreak (Burke; Chetcuti et al;Polo;Seyfi et al;Wilkinson et al, 2020). The sources of these ethnic conflicts can be political, social, economic and religious, which is already deeply rooted before and further boosted during COVID-19 (Burke, 2020; "Ethnic conflict", n.d.).…”

“…3) How India's online and physical attack on minorities by claiming a particular community as the only reason for the super spread. Polo (2020) stated that the world becomes more socially unrest, violent and less democratic than what was before the detection of global pandemic (COVID-19). The case is even worse for many countries where the existing conflicts have already made the citizens not to trust authorities, and fewer options to implement any centralized command or control approach to reduce pandemic spread (Wilkinson et al, 2020).…”