PEACE WATCH: CELEBRATING AND ADVOCATING
The world as we know it has changed. Various countries across the globe have moved from a state of peace to chaos within months and years. The society no longer accommodates one another as they now believe they are superior to the other. Lives are now held like a pinch of sand, worthless, unaccountable and carefree. Children are now turned orphans, mothers turned childless, families rendered parent less, brothers and sisters rendered disable with no clue as to when all these will come to an end.
Countries are using basic amenities (a right turned privilege) as a means to control citizens and one another. Hunger, drought, insecurity, bombing and shooting, increase in school dropouts, increase in unemployment, thuggery, daily collapse of substandard infrastructures and many more of these have contributed and are still contributing to the chaos happening around the world.
Many Nations across the world are affected by these crisis on a daily basis but mostly in the Africa, Asian and European continent.
Here are some of the countries currently going through crisis.
• Syria
• DR Congo
• Ukraine
• Palestine
• Nigeria
The International Day of Peace (“Peace Day”) is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by unanimous United Nations resolution, Peace Day provides a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace.
This year, we journey into some countries currently not experiencing peace, tracing the origin of turmoil and challenges to ensue peace.
• SYRIA
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed Kurdish-led armed group that controls much of northeast Syria, continued to arbitrarily detain civilians, including journalists, according to an August 2023 UN COI report that also documented deaths in detention in al-Hasakeh and Raqqa central prisons. In early September, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad abolished the notorious military field courts, where thousands of people are thought to have been sentenced to death without due process, and referred all pending cases to the military judiciary. Human rights advocates have long called for the dissolution of these courts, but there are concerns that the decision may lead to the erasure of court records and other evidence related to enforced disappearances, hampering efforts of family members to learn the fate of missing loved ones. As of mid-November, the SDF and Asayish regional security forces continued to arbitrarily detain at least 60,000 suspected members of Islamic State (ISIS) and family members from Syria and nearly 60 other countries. Detention conditions remained life-threatening, degrading, and inhumane. Most detainees are children. At least 39 countries had repatriated or facilitated the returns of about 9,000 of their citizens, including at least 4,000 in 2023 alone. Most repatriations were to neighboring Iraq.
• DR CONGO
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) is home to the second largest internal displacement crisis in Africa. But little information is shared with the outside world about what’s happening in the country. In eastern DR Congo, a crisis of rare violence has been going on for more than two decades.
The deadly clashes that have been raging for years in the provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri have forced people to move several times. Everyday life is a succession of displacements. This complex and long-lasting crisis is having a terrible impact on the youngest. 13.7 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance. In September 2023, there were 416 schools closed due to insecurity and because they were being used to shelter displaced people.
The crisis in DR Congo has resulted in the internal displacement of 7.2 million people (March 2024), making it the second largest internal displacement crisis on the African continent.
Since the beginning of 2024, more than 738,000 people have been newly displaced in DR Congo. In most cases, these displacements are due to armed conflict, but also to local inter-communal tensions, land disputes and natural disasters.
•UKRAINE
what may be cumulatively one of Russia’s most destructive series of strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, several power facilities were attacked, resulting in further suffering and disruption to Ukrainian civilians. Deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure, such as power stations and electricity supplies, and causing overwhelming harm to civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law.
Russia has scaled up its relentless aggression against the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine in recent days. The damage to civilian infrastructure has led to a fight for survival for Ukrainians who have been learning to live in perpetual mortal danger and – quite literally – growing darkness.
•PALESTINE
In Gaza, people are already living with the consequences of conflict-related damage to environmental management systems and pollution today. Water and sanitation have collapsed. Critical infrastructure continues to be decimated. Coastal areas, soil and ecosystems have been severely impacted. All of this is deeply harming people’s health, food security and Gaza’s resilience. An estimated 39 million tonnes of debris have been generated by the Conflict.
Debris poses risks to human health and the environment, from dust and contamination with unexploded ordnance, asbestos, industrial and medical waste, and other hazardous substances. Munitions containing heavy metals and explosive chemicals have been deployed in Gaza’s densely populated areas, contaminating soil and water sources, and posing a risk to human health which will persist long after the cessation of hostilities. Unexploded ordinance poses especially serious risks to children. The water, sanitation, and hygiene systems are almost entirely defunct. Gaza’s five wastewater treatment plants have shut down, with sewage contaminating beaches, coastal waters, soil, and freshwater with a host of pathogens, nutrients, microplastics, and hazardous chemicals. This poses immediate and long-term threats to the health of Gazans, marine life, and arable lands.
•NIGERIA
Multiple armed groups continue to kill and jeopardize the livelihood of millions across the country. In the Northwest, gangs of so-called bandits carry out widespread killings, kidnappings, sexual violence, and lootings, while in the Northeast, there has been a resurgence of attacks by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a breakout faction of Boko Haram. Security forces continue to be implicated in gross human rights abuses, including indiscriminate airstrikes, while the authorities have repeatedly failed to hold officers responsible for the abuses accountable through the justice system.
Nigeria continued to have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, attributable to inadequate and inequitable access to maternal health care and a lack of access to safe and legal abortion. Nigeria also has one of the world’s highest rates of child marriage because of poor enforcement of national and state laws.
High rates of inflation due to the removal of a subsidy on petrol, among other factors, gave rise to an increase in multidimensional poverty and economic inequality. The high inflation rate undermined access to food and other necessities in a country where millions live in extreme poverty without a functional social protection system.
Various Peace moves have been made to de-escalate these crisis going on in these countries and some of them include:
•Providing internships and business development training to youths and adults.
•Supporting children to access education and implementing child protection activities.
•Providing emergency healthcare services.
•Providing opportunities for economic revitalization and reintegration as well as strengthening conflict resolution mechanisms to enable peaceful cohabitation.
•Social assistance to compensate payment of utility bills.
•Social assistance for children with disabilities.
•Grants to internally displaced persons.
War and societal crisis is no respecter of anyone. We all will feel the impacts and implications one way or the other. Let us come together a people to stand against any form of war and crisis not just for us but for our generations to come.
Let us all create Peace Day every day!
