New Delhi: Amid torrential rain, hundreds of slaves gathered at Bois Caïman or Alligator Forest. Their purpose: to heed the words of Dutty Boukman, a Vodou priest, and Cécile Fatiman, a priestess.
Taken by the spirits, Fatiman begins to dance languorously. A Creole pig, at the centre of the meet, awaits its fate — the sacrifice to honour their deity. As the pig is sacrificed, the slaves agree to a plan — to set plantations aflame and fight against their enslavement.
Eight days later, they launched their insurrection in the North of the island. And 13 years later, after a hundred thousand deaths or more, the slaves on 1 January 1804 announced the independence of their country that shook the very order of the colonial world — Haiti.
The veracity of the Bois Caïman ceremony may be debated, yet it remains an indelible chapter in Haiti’s storied past.
The country — the first in the Western Hemisphere to permanently abolish slavery — was the crown jewel of the French Empire.
Haitian cocoa, sugar and indigo plantations made it the highest revenue-generating colony for the French, enriching the 40,000-odd white elite in the country, while a brutal regime of terror and control was enforced on the African population.
The effects of the revolution and the subsequent double-debt payments imposed by France in 1825 continue to shape Haiti’s present.
The country lost $115 billion in economic growth since its foundation, according to an estimate by The New York Times.
Today, 233 years post-revolution, Haiti grapples with rampant violence, political corruption, and continued foreign interference.
In 2021, Jovenel Moïse, the president of Haiti was assassinated. A few days before his death, he had appointed Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon, as the prime minister but had not yet sworn him in.
Right after the assassination, the country faced back-to-back natural disasters — an earthquake measuring 7.2 and a tropical storm.
Combined with the political vacuum, the country descended into the current situation where heavily armed gangs and criminals have taken over large parts of the capital — Port-au-Prince — using violence and “collective rape” to terrorise the population, as reported by The Washington Post.
In 2023, Haiti’s death toll surged by 39 percent, reaching 1,980 fatalities, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based crisis mapping organisation.
The country is expecting a Kenya-led international police force to help combat the rising violence, though its expected arrival is yet to be confirmed.
The violence seen in Haiti is not an exception in the world. According to ACLED data, in 2023, the world witnessed a 12 percent uptick in worldwide conflicts over the previous year, and a 40 percent increase since 2020. Conflicts continue to rage globally, with about one in six people worldwide affected by it.
ThePrint looks at some of the most intense conflicts raging across the world.
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The Sahel
The Sahel region — specifically Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, all of which are under the control of military juntas — has been at the forefront against a “regional jihadist insurgency” led by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the al-Qaeda’s branch in the Sahel, and the Islamic State Sahel Province (IS Sahel), according to ACLED.
Following the 2022 military coup in Burkina Faso, the armed forces are in control of about half the country, while the remaining is controlled by armed groups that have increasingly been blockading cities and towns outside of its capital Ouagadougou, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Across the Sahel region, violence has increased by 38 percent in 2023 compared to 2022 according to ACLED. More than 8,000 people were reported killed in Burkina Faso in 2023 alone.
In Mali, the armed forces along with the rechristened Wagner mercenary group launched an offensive in the North that has been under the control of militias and rebels for years.
As many as 5,601 people have been reported killed across 633 battles, 480 explosions and 979 incidents of violence against civilians in Mali, between 1 January 2023 and 26 April 2024, according to ACLED.
Niger, another country in this neighbourhood, was the scene of a military coup in July last year. IS Sahel consolidated its control in the region in early 2023 and has since launched attacks against Niger.
The Niger armed forces have stepped up their attacks against IS Sahel. According to the ACLED report, between 1 January 2023 and 26 April 2024, 1,724 deaths have been reported in the country.
Sudan and DR Congo
Sudan, alongside the Sahel and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), stands as one of the primary conflict-ridden areas on the continent.
The civil war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023, shows no signs of abating, while El-Fasher, the last major city in the western region of Darfur, is on the “precipice of a large-scale massacre.”
The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary organisation, has killed at least 16,458 people since it began, according to ACLED.
The RSF led by Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has captured the four other capital cities in Darfur and is in control of large swathes of Khartoum, the capital of the country.
The SAF, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and stationed in the strategic Red Sea port city of Port Sudan, is grappling with a humanitarian emergency that has left 25 million citizens in need of assistance, while El-Fasher is on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations.
The conflict also has international implications given the alleged interference by Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in support of the warring parties.
The March 23 Movement (M23) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have continued to clash with the government forces in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In December 2023, the presidential elections also saw an outbreak of violence across the country.
The M23, allegedly backed by Rwanda, has been on the offensive in North Kivu, since February 2024 aiming to capture the regional capital Goma. The armed group is in control of large parts of the province.
Apart from the M23, the ADF is also active in the eastern regions of the DRC. The ADF is reported to have ties to Islamic State (IS) and has conducted raids in North Kivu and killed civilians, according to media reports. ACLED reports that 5,057 people died in the country between 1 January 2023 and 26 April 2024.
Gaza and West Asia
Hamas — the militant outfit in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007 — launched an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing close to 1,200 Israelis and taking 250 hostages. This led to Israel’s retaliation, which has been ongoing since.
As a result of Israel’s retaliation, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-led Gazan health authorities.
The war has seen an intense aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that has destroyed over 50 percent of houses in the strip and displaced nearly 80 percent of its total population of close to 2.3 million people, according to an analysis by the BBC.
The conflict in Gaza has also led to military strikes in Southern Lebanon and Syria, including at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus. Iran for the first time launched missiles and loitering munitions from its territory at Israel — heightening tensions in the region.
The other major conflict in the region is the Yemeni civil war. Fought between the Houthis — supported by Iran and the internationally recognised government backed by Saudi Arabia — the civil war has been ongoing for nearly a decade.
While fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni government has largely subsided in recent years, the Shiite insurgents have aimed at maritime shipping routes in response to the war in Gaza. Between 1 January 2023 and 26 April 2024, a total of 3,927 fatalities have been reported in Yemen, according to the ACLED report.
Myanmar & the war in Ukraine
The civil war in Myanmar started after the military coup in February 2021. The various ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and the civilian government in exile have stepped up their attacks throughout 2023 and the early parts of this year.
According to the ACLED, there have been 20,845 fatalities reported between 1 January 2023 and 26 April 2024. In recent weeks, EAOs, such as the Chin Brotherhood Alliance and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) have made significant gains against the ruling junta, capturing towns such as Kyindwe and Myawaddy.
The junta recaptured Myawaddy in late April, highlighting the intense back and forth in the ongoing war in the country.
Myawaddy connects Myanmar with Thailand at Mae Sot — a key trading point which witnesses billions of dollars worth of goods transported across for years.
The Thai-Myanmar Friendship bridge connecting the two towns is also a part of the India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) Trilateral Highway.
The IMT Highway is one of India’s key transport corridors that would connect the country with Southeast Asia and eventually with the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), ensuring New Delhi’s centrality in connecting the East with the West.
The largest war in Europe, since the end of World War II, began on 24 February 2022, when Russian President Vladimir V. Putin announced a “special military operation” against Ukraine. The war, which has been ongoing for over two years, has seen a large number of casualties on both sides.
Western countries estimate anywhere between 1,80,000 and 4,50,000 Russian military casualties, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted about 31,000 Ukrainian casualties earlier this year. None of these figures can be verified.
Furthermore, Zelenskyy’s figures are likely underplaying the total toll of the Ukrainian army.
Moscow has also been launching loitering munitions and aerial strikes across Ukraine, while Kyiv in recent months has successfully sunk a couple of dozen Russian naval vessels and petroleum refineries across the country.
The beleaguered Ukrainian armed forces have been on the retreat from Donbas after Russia captured Bakhmut and Avdiivka in recent months.
Currently, about 25,000 Russian troops have amassed near the town of Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut, one of the last strategic strongholds of the Ukrainian military, according to The New York Times.
Reports suggest that Moscow is attempting to capture as much of the Donbas as possible before the arrival of US aid to Kyiv after Congress passed a $60 billion funding bill last month.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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