Let’s just face it we all Human beings can’t survive without peace. Peace is what our every breath and every single heartbeat of us needs. Some of us will be familiar with the concept “right and wrong are very relative terms “well, same is the case with peace and conflict.

First, let me explain what peace is? And what is conflict? Before we go into deeper aspects. Peace is freedom from disturbance, lack of conflict and freedom from fear of violence. Conflict is a lack of peace, a serious disagreement—another word for war. If you have looked into the above definition’s, you must have noticed that these to walk hand in hand. They say peace comes when the war has ended, but there is a quick question what about the mental peace which was destroyed in the process of conflict? If we dig deeper into this concept, there are various thing to look upon, for example :

John Galtung “the father of peace studies “distinct between “negative peace “and “positive peace “.

  • NEGATIVE PEACE: refers to the absence of love and
  • POSITIVE PEACE: filled with positive content such as restoration of relationships.

Galtung also had models to represent CONFLICT, VIOLENCE AND PEACE. The conflict had contradiction, attitude and behaviour. Violence had structural violence, cultural violence and direct violence. Peace had peacebuilding, peacemaking and peacekeeping. The art of peace is basically just a well managed social conflict.

Types of Conflict

On the other hand, we do several types which are given below:

  1. Intragroup Conflict: the conflict between one person and the group they are part of
  2. Interpersonal Conflict: the conflict between two or more people
  3. Content Conflict: the conflict between 2 individuals on a certain issue
  4. Relationship Conflict: when individuals disagree with one another, it decreases loyalty and affection between them
  5. Process Conflict: disagreement on some other’s approach, ideas
  6. Task Conflict: it is similar to process conflict, not agreeing with somebodies opinion
  7. Affective Conflict: the conflict between two individuals creating suspicion, distrust and ill will
  8. Cognitive Conflict: creating a difference in perspective, improves one’s decision making, creates positive tension
  9. Conflict of Interest: destroying motivation
  10. Cultural Conflict: the clash between cultural values 
  11. Ethnic Conflict: the clash between two ethnic groups
  12. Organisational Conflict: lack of harmony created by the opposition  
  13. Role Conflict: individual creating trouble and making their demands as a priority
  14. Social Conflict: the clash between social classes 
  15. Work-Family Conflict: the clash between the work and family roles of an individual

Factors that provoke conflict

  • Superiority: Individuals believes that he/she and their thoughts are privileged and are always right
  • Injustice: Disloyalty of mistreatment faced by the individual.
  • Vulnerability: Conflict within that individual which leads him/ her to harm themselves
  • Distrust: Prevents the individual from creating social relationships
  • Helplessness: Individual would think that he/she is good for nothing, have insufficient help or unfavourable

It is important to remember that conflict is part of human life, but has an option to prevent. The violence can vary from an interpersonal and global level. We need to understand the conflict and follow some steps to reconcile the relationships lost.

Now an excellent question comes up in my mind is that what type of conflicts does 2020 have for us? 

The 10 Conflicts to Worry About in 2020

  1. THE SAHEL: High risk of conflicts diffusing and infecting neighbour
  2. MEXICO: High risk of cartel “criminal market “Developing into an insurgency 
  3. YEMEN: High risk of persistent conflict amid shifting frontlines and alliances
  4. INDIA: At the risk of Modi’s plans derailing with uncontrollable effects
  5. SOMALIA: High risk of Al Shabaab adapting to dominate and isolate a weak government
  6. IRAN: High risk of centre deteriorating amid regime escalation at home and abroad
  7. AFGHANISTAN: High risk of rising violence targeting civilians 
  8. ETHIOPIA: At the risk of increased Fragmentation despite a popular leader 
  9. LEBANON: High risk of protest devolving into organised violence
  10. UNITED STATES: The Developed, democratic political system at risk of turning violent

The Sahel

There is a lot of political violence in the Sahel in the regions Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Mali. The graph of casualties was increased between from 2014 to 2019. The violence was increased almost twice in 2019 than 2018, becoming most dangerous in over 20 years, many regions became part of the Islamist group. The response from the security / armed forces was feeble and led to more insecurity. There were more than 2100 cases of political violence and protest events in 2019.

Over 5360 cases of causalities reported in 2019. Events of political violence, riots have increased immensely over five years.

Mexico

Mexico was becoming progressively worse when it comes to the security situation. There are a lot of cases of criminal and drug-related violence. A lot of cases of homicide was reported back in 2019; there were almost 31000 cases of homicides in 2017 and 2018. Nearly 60,000 people have disappeared since 2006. The security groups were weak, possibly developing into an insurgency. It has the same situation as The Sahel having a lot of political violence leading to almost 9200 casualties in 2019.

Yemen

United nation declared Yemen as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis with progressively becoming worse. 

Due to this violence over 100000 have been killed. Yemen has now become the part of middle east rivalry having Iran on the one hand and The US on the other. In 2018 an agreement was created “Stockholm agreement “which was likely to prevent famine and fight between the two sides. Some of the people became against the Hadi government. Due to this launch of Huthi missiles and retaliatory Saudi airstrikes were seen.

India

India’s Bharatiya Janata Party government has created some of the policies which have made international and domestic conflicts. The evergreen tension between India and Pakistan over disputed Kashmir increased rapidly in 2019. The relationship between India and Pakistan can be defined as militant attacks and frequent cross border violence along the line of control.

The Muslims of India brutally protested the latest bill which was passed under the name of citizenship amendment act 2019 As we all know that India is a very diverse country the people of the northeast also oppose this act indicating that it was full of a threat to ethnic violence in the region. India has the world’s largest democracy, but still, the policies are made avoiding the concept of democracy Due to these political rights political violence approximately 23,570 protests have been reported and nearly 1520 casualties were reported in 2019.

Somalia

In Somalia, there is a terrorist group named Al Shabab, which is a major threat to the Somalia society and President government in 2020.

The security groups of Somalia have tried their level best to degrade the group throughout the year but did not succeed. The use got engaged in this conflict and creating unremarkable rates of airstrikes increased by 24% from 2018 and nearly 200% when compared to strikes in 2016. Al Shabab is fully out there to dominate the government and creating a political violence landscape In Somalia. In Somalia Devo word 2375 political violence and political events in 2019 and more than 4030 facilities were reported in 2019. 

All these countries mentioned have the conflicts due to political violence, racism, changing policies avoiding the concept of democracy which leads to a lot of casualties. 

Conflict and Role of Humanitarian Needs

The role of conflict is responsible for creating the humanitarian needs, which has been reasonably well understood. Until recently, there has been or vows relationship between conflict and humanitarian needs; there has been a positive and negative impact of humanitarian action on the process of conflict.

Humanitarian action soulfully depends upon the principle of neutrality. (Which is based on the political and military objectives of the parties in conflict ), proportionality (Which is related to the distribution of help ), Independence from the political agendas of international organisations and states.

A brief discussion about the relationship Of humanitarian crisis and conflict has been discussed above now let us know about what is the humanitarian crisis?

Crisis on the Brink: Peace, Conflict and  Humanitarian Response

What is Humanitarian Crisis?

According to the Google, it is defined as a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or wellbeing of the community or large group of people it may be an internal or external conflict and usually occurs throughout a large land area 

What causes humanitarian crisis? 

It is caused by the complex catastrophe ease, which is a combination of natural and human-made elements and different causes of vulnerability and many more factors which leads to the humanitarian crisis. NIA some of the examples are food insecurity, arm conflicts, displaced population.

Humanitarian Approach

It is the basic ideology which means that peoples duty to promote Human welfare to save life to help people who are suffering and promoting human dignity in the middle of a human-made or natural disasters 

Countries with the Worst Humanitarian Crisis

The top 5 countries who are experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis are 

Yemen

The need for humanity response over there is due to the Saudi led gulf forces to continue to fight around. Around 24,000,000 or 80% of Yemen’s population need humanitarian assistance. Due to the fight, the attacks are made on infrastructure which weekend ability to provide healthcare education food fuel clean water and sanitation around 1.2 1million Yemenis go through food insecurity, and around 68% of Yemenis do not have access to healthcare. The outbreak of Cholera which was spread back in 2019 in German, eventually killed more than 3700 people.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

The conflict over there was due to the corruption fuelling to due to the underdevelopment and instability in the country around 17% of the population needed humanitarian assistance the fight between the military and the different ethnic militias is ubiquitous over there. Most recently there was a fight between eastern central DRC because of these conflicts around 4.5 million Congolese got displaced people had to flee from their homes and agricultural lands due to this they have to face a lot of severe food insecurity. The outbreak of Ebola and measles back in 2019 alone killed more than 4000 people.

Syria

Syria has the largest displacement crisis in the world. It has been a part Of war since 2015. As a result, 65% of the Syrian population requires Humanitarian assistance due to the complex catastrophe in Syria the infrastructure was destroyed due to this 54% of the health facilities were not available, and 50% of the sewage systems were not functional. This conflict has displaced more than 12.7 million Syrians 6 million people are internally displaced, and 5.7 million silence are refugees in Europe or neighbouring countries.

Nigeria

The Cholera outbreak has created the high levels of food insecurity around 7.7 million Nigerians need humanitarian assistance mainly from the northern states of Borno Adamawa, and Yobe 540 thousand Nigerians are internally displaced, and 41 thousand people travelled North to Niger the outbreaks like Lassa fever and Cholera are still ongoing endemic diseases which are spreading throughout the country. 

Venezuela

Due to the collapse of Venezuela’s economy the basic human needs like food, clean water and medicines are in short supply at least 80% of the population are experiencing food insecurity along with that only 18% of people have consistent access to the three water without healthcare facilities they are not able to fight with the disease. 94% of the household in Venezuela are in poverty due to which they are compared to leave the country. By the end of 2020, around 5.5 million Venezuelans will emigrate, and this will cause the largest internal displacement in Latin America and the second-largest refugee crisis in the world behind Syria.

Humanitarian Aid Organisations

The top 5 humanitarian aid organizations are 

  1. World Food Programme reaches 90 million people with food assistance in 80 countries.
  2. Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere: it helps in fighting global poverty. They have supported close 2000 poverty-fighting development humanitarian aid projects.
  3. Oxfam International: there are 17 organisations which are working in approximately 90 countries worldwide to find the perfect solutions to prevent poverty and injustice around the world.
  4. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: it is the world largest humanitarian network which reaches around one 50 million people in 189 national societies this humanitarian organisation tackles issues in 4 central departments: disaster response, disaster preparedness, health and community care, it promotes humanitarian values of social inclusion and peace.
  5. Action Against Hunger: it is and global humanity in an organisation which is dedicated to ending world hunger it focuses on saving the lives of malnourished children and giving them access to safe water and sustainable solutions to hunger. Back in 2012, action against hunger provided more than 500 thousand small farmers with tools, treated 42,000 malnourished children in the Democratic Republic of combo and help 170 thousand people gain access to clean water in Kenya.

I hope the above article was quite informative and cleared the concept of peace conflicts in humanitarian response and made you understood the relationship between these three words.

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About the Author

Chahat

Hi. My name is Chahat. I am an architecture student by profession and a writer by heart. It wouldn’t be wrong to call myself hard liquor mixed with a little bit of intellect. I welcome all my readers to my world via a screen. Thank you.

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